Figures from the banking industry showed that Brits were ripped off to the tune of £290m in 2007 but the BBC claimed that the figure would have been nearly twice as high if every attempt had been successful.

Card-not-present or CNP fraud can be carried out online, by mail order or over the phone and does not involve the buyer presenting the card to the retailer.

Two BBC reporters discovered that they could easily buy credit card details of individuals online and managed to trace several fraudulent transactions, passing the details on to the police.

"Card-not-present fraud is a major problem which is not going away and clearly is getting worse as criminals increase their efforts to steal from retailers," said Paul Simms, chief executive of the 3rd Man Group, a firm specialising in anti-fraud solutions.

Simms suggested that behavioural analysis was one way retailers could help to stamp out fraud.

By alerting customers when they appear to make purchases that are contrary to their normal buying patterns, some 80 per cent of fraudulent attempts can be nipped in the bud, Simms said.

However, security firm F-Secure told Web User methods used to steal credit card and banking details were becoming more sophisticated.

F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen said that phishing was on the decline and that banking Trojans were a much greater menace for surfers.

These Trojans infiltrate a PC and are only activated when a banking site is accessed online. The Trojan then presents itself, mimicking the appearance of the site and steals the data entered.

The best way to protect against this threat, said Hypponen, was to make sure your security software was up to date.

www.apacs.org.uk
www.f-secure.co.uk

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