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Fraud for the holidays
Hendrick believes it is the responsibility of all Hendrick remarked that the holiday
participants in the transaction value chain shopping season can be a particularly
– from merchants to back-end payment processors pernicious time for fraud attacks.
"Fraudsters are opportunists at
– to collaborate to prevent fraud. heart, so they will take advantage of
any situation that they can to try to
blend in with legitimate purchases
an 'overlay attack,' can be used on any vendor's POS terminal or PIN pad," and activity," she said. "While fraud
the manufacturer told The Green Sheet. "As with most skimming efforts, daily is a year-round business, like with all
inspection of payment devices will quickly reveal such skimming efforts."
payment fraud, when sales increase,
fraud also increases."
Karisse Hendrick, Industry Specialist at the Merchant Risk Council, said the
skimming device is concerning because it would be harder to detect than other Hendrick noted that during the
skimmers. "Historically, we have seen that some of the early skimming devices holiday rush, it can be more
were fairly obvious, at least to the trained eye, and it was quite obvious that challenging for merchants to detect
these were added to the terminal and not safe," she said.
fraud schemes because of higher than
usual volumes of in-store and online
The MRC, an association geared to helping retailers minimize fraud and transactions, as well as a greater
other threats to business stability, has noticed that fraudsters are increasingly amount of legitimate high-dollar
sophisticated in both the fraudulent devices they deploy and in their behavior, transactions.
especially in the e-commerce realm.
Hendrick said merchants can
"As merchants add tools and train employees to detect fraudulent transactions, help guard against attacks by
fraudsters patiently study which transactions are flagged and which appear keeping abreast of current fraud
legitimate, and then develop elaborate ways to mask their behavior to 'fit in' threats through publications and
with legitimate customer orders," Hendrick said.
communication with other merchants.
Since fraudsters often specialize in
specific retail sectors, it is worthwhile
for merchants to establish open lines
of communication with competitors,
she added.

Fraudsters are apparently doing
just that. "Most often we see that if
a fraudster is successful once, they
have shared this with others within
their community, and your company
no doubt will be a target for others,"
Hendrick said.

To combat fraudsters and their
schemes, employee training is vital.
"It is … critical to train all frontline
staff, especially customer service
employees, whether seasonal or
permanent, to be on the lookout for
suspicious or abnormal customer
behavior, whether in person or in an
online order," Hendrick said. "They
are your first line of defense and your
eyes and ears."

Hendrick believes it is the
responsibility of all participants in
the transaction value chain – from
merchants to back-end payment
processors – to collaborate to prevent
fraud.
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