Well This Makes Me Feel Better

Battling against online fraud is an "escalating war," according toKatherine Hutchinson, senior director of global risk management forPayPal.

Every time companies set up a new roadblock to combat the problem,the fraudsters eventually find a way to work around the new obstacle.The arms race then ratchets up again over some other weakness in creditcard payments.

At the Web 2.0 Expo Internet conference yesterday in San Francisco,Hutchinson painted a bleak portrait of the combat.

Boiler rooms filledwith fraudsters who try to gain access to credit card numbers using avariety of means from phishing e-mails to computer keystroke monitoringto software that guesses credit card numbers, (Editor's Note:  OR PINS) sometimes accurately,sometimes not, zombies, malware, bots, viruses, remote takeovers, DNS Hijacking, the list goes on and on...and on. 


Hutchinson had a few interesting points to share about fraud rates,based on the countries where the transactions originate.

Lowest risk:

1. Austria

2. New Zealand

3. Taiwan

4. Norway

5. Spain

Highest risk:

1. Ukraine

2. Yugoslavia (curious, since the country doesn't exist anymore)

3. Lithuania

4. Egypt

5. Romania 

Posted By: Verne Kopytoff (Email) | April 01 2009 at 03:11 PM

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