International Credit Card Hackers Hammered

Retailers can temporarily rejoice (for about a minute) now that six cyber villains have been caught in two different international credit card fraud rings.

The Register reports, “After investigations that began in 2009, the police executed three search warrants in metropolitan Sydney, retrieving EFTPOS terminals, computers, cash, mobile phones, skimming devices, and several Canadian credit cards. Other seizures in the two-year investigation have included 18,000 blank and counterfeit credit cards, stolen EFTPOS terminals, and skimming devices. The men arrested are Malaysian and Sri Lankan nationals, and are accused of coordinating the fraud operation in Australia, North America and Europe.”

Meanwhile, “a Brooklyn man has pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft for his role in an operation that defrauded credit card issuers of almost $800,000 in bogus charges. FBI and Secret Service agents recovered data for 2,341 stolen accounts on his computer and on the magnetic stripes of cards, according to court documents.”

Cooperation between U.S. law enforcement agencies and international governments can be credited in taking down these thieves. However, studies show there are plenty of other criminals involved in fraudulent acts from countries like China, Nigeria, Vietnam, Ukraine, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and South Korea to take their place.

There is an anti-fraud company in Oregon, called iovation Inc., that helps online businesses connect the devices used in fraud rings across geographies, by associating them with the accounts they access. Whether the device is a PC, smartphone, tablet or other Internet-enabled device, iovation’s device identification technology recognizes new and returning devices touching their client’s sites within multiple industries.

Cyber criminals with a history of fraud or abuse are obviously flagged by iovation’s ReputationManager 360 service, but even more interesting are the real-time checks that happen within a fraction of a section as the user is interacting with the website. This might include assessing risk for activities such as setting up an account, logging in, changing account information, or attempting to make a purchase or transfer funds. Real-time checks differ for each website integration point as businesses customize and continually fine-tune them to detect fraudulent and risky behavior so that they can identify and keep bad actors off their site for good.

Robert Siciliano, personal security and identity theft expert contributor to iovation, discusses organized criminal hackers busted on Good Morning America. Disclosures