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More and more people in the world are switching to a cashless form of payment, and the most common cashless forms happened to be connected to plastic. Whether it is a smart card or a credit card, those little thin strips of plastic have everything a person needs to buy anything from a gallon of milk to a new car.
With walking around without cash has some attractive properties, there is a dark side s well. According to the Reserve Bank, electronic payments have increased by 35 percent while check use has decreased by three percent. Those numbers may not make an impression, but the next one should. Credit card fraud for a single year reached almost $150 million. One cyber gang netted $70 million by stealing from a variety of mid-sized businesses in America. Authorities believe the gang is actually located in Easter Europe.
This large amount of money indicates that things need to change; it’s simply too easy for thieves to hack into accounts. Stealing money this way has become so easy, it has surpassed the monetary amount stolen through traditional crime. It very well could take credit card provider, smart card manufacturers, and law enforcement agencies working together to find a way to halt this type of theft.
The use of the Internet in connection with these crimes makes it more difficult to track thieves and has earned the method a variety of nicknames, including daylight robbery, ecrime, cybercrime, and electronic theft. Of course, when one considers that these nicknames also extend beyond credit card and smart card theft, the issue becomes even larger.
One solution for the future may be to implement tracking tools for smart cards and credit cards to prevent fraudulent use. Consumers can also take steps to ensure they don’t give out the information by accident by using anti-virus protection to prevent hacking attempts.
