Bank fraud is often due to our own mistakes claims expert
Fraud awareness campaign launched this week by the British Bankers’ Association.
The UK cards association reported that in 2013 fraud losses on UK cards amounted to £450.4m. “This figure was 16% up on the figure reported for 2012, card fraud is indisputably on the increase” warns Professor Mike Jackson, computer science expert at Birmingham City University.
Mike Jackson said: “We tend to think that such fraud is always carried out by high-tech hackers remote and distant from us. It is often the case however that our own human frailty is often the cause of our exposure to card fraud. The hacker who actually talks to us or contacts us directly by email may be more of a danger than the remote figure miles away on the internet.
“Exploiting weaknesses in technology to harvest passwords is hard work. It’s much easier to simply ring someone and ask what their password is. Surprisingly, such a direct approach often works and this is why card fraudsters do it. We human beings are often very trusting; a plausible story will often persuade us to offer up our valuable secrets.
“Fortunately the UK’s banks are now helping us to determine which requests are plausible and which are not. They have set out a list of things which they will never do. So if you do get asked to do one of these things you may be reasonably sure that the person emailing you or phoning you is up to no good. We learn how to take security precautions as we walk the physical streets of our neighbourhoods; we also need to learn to take precautions as we navigate the virtual streets of the internet.”