Internet Changes Everything

Personal banking e-fraud on increase

Yahoo! News - Personal banking e-fraud on increase

Fri Oct 1, 3:50 PM ET

By Josephine Cumbo

The financial services industry has stepped up efforts to stop millions of online banking users falling victim to gangs of hackers, often based overseas.

APACS, the Association for Payment Clearing Services, which brings together the UK payments industry, banks and police, has reported a sharp rise in the number of cases of hackers, many based in the former Soviet republics, targeting online customers with sophisticated so-called Trojan scams.

Trojans trick users into letting a virus bury itself in their computers and then communicate with criminals. The less sophisticated phishing scams use spoof e-mails and fake websites to gain access to bank details.

About 2,000 people in the UK are known to have fallen victim to phishing or Trojan fraud in the past nine months. These scams and credit card fraud on the net have cost banks £4.5m.

"These attacks are very sophisticated," said Det Chief Supt Mick Deats, head of the National High-Tech Crime Unit.A study by APACS, published on Friday, shows consumers are unaware of the risks of e-banking.

One in four people canvassed said the computer they used for online banking did not have an updated virus checker, while 41 per cent of the 1,944 adults interviewed did not have a firewall a basic security measure. Four per cent said they would respond to an e-mail supposedly from their bank asking them to click and re-enter security details a phishing scam.

APACS on Friday launched a website, banksafeonline.org.uk, listing ways consumers can protect themselves.

October 3, 2004 at 11:38 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home