CyberCrime
With the advance of technology, a normal working day will involve using the internet to find information, communicate with business colleagues or friends, access our bank accounts, purchase items and numerous other reasons. Our world has become the World Wide Web. The online retail world is one of the areas showing the fastest growth and most businesses now have their own websites. Although the internet has brought us countless benefits, we have to also deal with the crime connected with it. Crimes involving computers and networks are known as CyberCrimes; some examples of these are phishing, hacking, identity theft, child pornography, online gambling and information crimes such as trade secret theft and espionage.
CyberCrime is on the increase due to the anonymity of the online world. It is enormously difficult for online crimes to be traced back to the perpetrators and as most countries don’t have any regulations or laws against these sorts of crimes there are limited structures in place that can deal with it. This means anyone involved in internet sales and businesses have to establish measures to help protect themselves, mainly by acquiring a good anti-fraud system that will protect their business and customers.
One of the main CyberCrimes to affect online merchants is credit card fraud, basically this is where someone uses a stolen credit card data to pay for products or services online. Merchants have huge problems with fraudulent transactions online as neither the cardholder nor the card is present during the purchase and so the merchant has to depend on the information that has been entered. Credit card fraud is one of the most wide spread types of fraud carried out by hackers.
Hackers will obtain information in various ways; the most common methods used are either through the actual stolen credit card or by copying information from retailers. There are other instances of hackers who have been able to get hold of large numbers of credit card information from company databases by hacking into their systems and even employees of companies with huge databases of customers selling customers personal and credit card information to crooks.
Usually, the criminal will check out the legality of the credit card information. He does this by accessing a website where he knows the credit card will be billed straight away for the products he orders. He will place an order for an insignificant amount and as soon as the order has cleared the criminal knows the credit card information is legitimate. Once this is done he then places another order for the goods/products he really wanted. Some hackers will use the credit card data to transfer money to their own accounts. Hackers are so skilled in obtaining this information that most of the time it can be impossible to pinpoint their location and so they will never be caught. Even if the criminal can be found, the merchants and the banks will not chase the hacker as the costs of investigating the crime, trying to prove it and then prosecuting them would normally work out much more expensive than the value of the goods they had purchased on the stolen credit card. So, more often than not, the crime is wiped off.
In today’s online world, you might face encounters with hackers, fraudsters and the threat of identity theft. As an online merchant, you need to take precautions against credit card fraud as using credit cards online always presents a risk no matter how secure the anti-fraud system. Even secure transactions can be a risk as in order to process the information, first it needs to be decrypted to plain text. Merchants and customers alike are exposed to credit card fraud. Check out the internet for a reputable website that offers a good quality anti-fraud system that will protect your business and your customers.
With the advance of technology, a normal working day will involve using the internet to find information, communicate with business colleagues or friends, access our bank accounts, purchase items and numerous other reasons. Our world has become the World Wide Web. The online retail world is one of the areas showing the fastest growth and most businesses now have their own websites. Although the internet has brought us countless benefits, we have to also deal with the crime connected with it. Crimes involving computers and networks are known as CyberCrimes; some examples of these are phishing, hacking, identity theft, child pornography, online gambling and information crimes such as trade secret theft and espionage.
CyberCrime is on the increase due to the anonymity of the online world. It is enormously difficult for online crimes to be traced back to the perpetrators and as most countries don’t have any regulations or laws against these sorts of crimes there are limited structures in place that can deal with it. This means anyone involved in internet sales and businesses have to establish measures to help protect themselves, mainly by acquiring a good anti-fraud system that will protect their business and customers.
One of the main CyberCrimes to affect online merchants is credit card fraud, basically this is where someone uses a stolen credit card data to pay for products or services online. Merchants have huge problems with fraudulent transactions online as neither the cardholder nor the card is present during the purchase and so the merchant has to depend on the information that has been entered. Credit card fraud is one of the most wide spread types of fraud carried out by hackers.
Hackers will obtain information in various ways; the most common methods used are either through the actual stolen credit card or by copying information from retailers. There are other instances of hackers who have been able to get hold of large numbers of credit card information from company databases by hacking into their systems and even employees of companies with huge databases of customers selling customers personal and credit card information to crooks.
Usually, the criminal will check out the legality of the credit card information. He does this by accessing a website where he knows the credit card will be billed straight away for the products he orders. He will place an order for an insignificant amount and as soon as the order has cleared the criminal knows the credit card information is legitimate. Once this is done he then places another order for the goods/products he really wanted. Some hackers will use the credit card data to transfer money to their own accounts. Hackers are so skilled in obtaining this information that most of the time it can be impossible to pinpoint their location and so they will never be caught. Even if the criminal can be found, the merchants and the banks will not chase the hacker as the costs of investigating the crime, trying to prove it and then prosecuting them would normally work out much more expensive than the value of the goods they had purchased on the stolen credit card. So, more often than not, the crime is wiped off.
In today’s online world, you might face encounters with hackers, fraudsters and the threat of identity theft. As an online merchant, you need to take precautions against credit card fraud as using credit cards online always presents a risk no matter how secure the anti-fraud system. Even secure transactions can be a risk as in order to process the information, first it needs to be decrypted to plain text. Merchants and customers alike are exposed to credit card fraud. Check out the internet for a reputable website that offers a good quality anti-fraud system that will protect your business and your customers.
