Tuesday 11 December 2012

500,000 Aussie Credit Card Thefts busted by Authorities

A group of 16 Romanians were allegedly involved in probably “one of the largest data breach investigation ever undertaken by Australian law enforcement.”

The obvious crime done was the robbery of information of more or less 500,000 Australians who have done their purchases using their credit cards. How this was done was through the break-in of hackers to the database of 100 retail stores where customers’ card information were stored at the time of purchase. Police said that they weren’t able to exactly quantify, but about 30,000 of the stolen card detail from Australian businesses’ database were already used to illegally buy things worth $30M.

Apparently, retail stores were independently operated and small scale in nature, thus making them more vulnerable and easier targets because no stringent security protocols are employed in their internal computer systems. This has been the common game plan for cyber criminal these days; small businesses become easy targets because of their illusions of invulnerability –thinking that since they are small in size, they would not attract any cybercriminals.

All affected businesses were told how they were hacked, and they all agreed to install better security systems which would prevent any such event again. On the negative side, those are only 100 out of the almost 500,000 involved. It has come to authorities’ knowledge that Australians whose credit card information were exposed are still unaware of the privacy breach. Despite this, authorities claimed that none of them shall lose money as they are guarded by banks’ and financial institutions’ privacy policies.

“Australian banks and credit unions have reimbursed the 30 million dollars in financial losses suffered by the 30,000 Australians whose credit card details were used to commit frauds around the world and will continue to bear the cost if more frauds are committed.” *

This issue has been raised! Why suffer and take the blame when it's not your fault? Whether you're managing a small scale business or you're the online shopper who keeps on purchasing, you need to be educated on security. Not just for our own benefits but for others as well.

Encrypting your website with strong SSL Certificates from a trusted Certificate Authority, like GlobalSign is the best way to secure digital information. GlobalSign, being one of the world's largest SSL and client certificate provider, has solutions your small scale businesses need for it to get online shoppers trust your website and shop without hesitation. GlobalSign offers a wide range of trust services and products. It offers SSL certificates secured by the highest encryption level available to date, 2048-bit encryption. You may choose among Domain Validation SSL, Organization Validation SSL, and Extended Validation SSL.

For further details/inquiries, you may visit our website at www.globalsign.com.sg or connect with us on Facebook (https://facebook.com/GlobalSignAPAC), Twitter (https://twitter.com/GlobalSign_APAC) for updates. You may also contact us directly at sales-apac@globalsign.com.

No comments:

Post a Comment