Fraud & Security

  Fraudsters are turning their attention to e-commerce sites, continuing to improve the malware they use to find and harvest payment card data, and sensing opportunity in mobile devices, according to the latest annual data-breach report by Trustwave Holdings Inc. Chicago-based Trustwave, a leading data-forensics investigator and security vendor, based …

In sharp contrast to only a year ago, independent sales organizations and other merchant acquirers now rank revenue generation as their number-one goal for programs they offer to help merchants comply with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI), according to a survey set to be released on Thursday. The …

With the fabled Cyber Monday shopping frenzy under way, Visa Inc. launched an authentication tool for online transactions intended to cut fraud while reducing the risk of shopping-cart abandonment. The tool, which Visa calls its Consumer Authentication Service, can be deployed by any Visa issuer starting on Monday. The network …

A controversial form of automated debit called the remotely created check (RCC) has figured prominently in the demise of a small bank that processed payments for fraudulent merchants and their third-party processors. The U.S. Attorney’s office in Philadelphia announced this week that First Bank of Delaware agreed to a settlement …

For years, the payments industry has hoped to see improvement in card-data security among small merchants in the U.S. But, according to a survey released last week, it’s not happening. Indeed, in some important measures, there has been backsliding on security among the nation’s smallest retailers. A little more than …

Calling it a “sophisticated criminal effort,” Barnes & Noble Inc. on Wednesday reported tampering occurred on PIN pads at 63 of its stores in nine states. The company on Sept. 14 disconnected every PIN pad in all of its nearly 700 stores but indicated that in addition to personal identification …

MasterCard is getting close to announcing an EMV-related liability shift for online and other card-not-present transactions, a network executive said on Monday. “MasterCard will have a card-not-present liability shift,” said Melanie Gluck, vice president of emerging payments at the country’s second-largest payments network. “We haven’t announced it yet, it’s under …

Cardholders in Mexico, not the United States, report the highest incidents of card fraud, according to a new report from Boston-based Aite Group LLC and Elkhorn, Neb-based ACI Payment Systems. Of the credit, debit, and prepaid cardholders surveyed in Mexico, where EMV cards are rolling out, 44% reported an incident …

The extent of government scrutiny of the acquiring business came into sharp relief on Wednesday as a federal official told an audience of top-level executives with processors and independent sales organizations that online transaction fraud is too high and that the executives must do more to bring it down. “There …

With a major chip card standard bearing down on U.S. merchants, acquirers, and issuers, small merchants in particular could face tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in annual fraud losses they are currently protected from, a processor executive argues. Patty Walters, senior vice president for merchant products and …