Fraud & Security

A well-crafted email message from an executive can cause employees to take swift action. That’s just what criminals hope for when they send phishing messages that purport to be from senior executives to more junior ones, says Scott Montgomery, vice president and chief technical strategist at Intel Security, the data-protection …

So far, online merchants are winning the battle against fraud, but the gains are coming at a high cost, according to the latest annual fraud study from CyberSource Corp., set for release next week with results for 2015. The progress also comes as card-not-present merchants prepare for an expected onslaught …

The coming of same-day settlement of automated clearing house transactions to the U.S. next September has many bank and credit-union executives excited about the prospect of faster payments. But fears about more fraud are rising, too. A recent survey of approximately 60 financial institutions by New York City-based fraud-control firm …

With data breaches continuing to plague the payments business, and with major incidents like that of Target Corp. still fresh in the minds of payments professionals, you might think retailers would be cautious these days about their ability to ward off attackers. Not so, according to survey data released Tuesday …

Merchants attempting to create more digital experiences in their stores and restaurants because of consumer expectations are finding security of payments to be a significant challenge, finds the “Step Up The In-Person Experience” report issued by Forrester Consulting Inc. Commissioned by tablet point-of-sale maker Revel Systems, the report examines how …

• The PCI Security Standards Council said it will publish version 3.2 of the Payment Card Industry data-security standard this Thursday. • Ziosk LLC, a provider of tablets for at-table payment in restaurants, announced deals with several entertainment providers for new content on its installed base of 170,000 devices. • …

• Starbucks Corp. says mobile payment represented 24% of total U.S. tender in fiscal 2016’s second quarter, and the coffee company’s Mobile Order & Pay service accounted for 4% of total transactions, or about 8 million per month, up 40% from the first quarter. • Citing a “large increase” in fraudulent …

As federal regulators increasingly zero in on data breaches, lawyers at a payments conference on Wednesday warned that organizations that suffer breaches are likely to have a tougher time avoiding legal liability in the years ahead. And the PCI Security Standards Council disclosed some of the major changes in its …

A migration of sorts appears to be under way among criminals targeting electronic payments as evidence surfaces that ATMs, especially those not owned by banks, are being targeted. In 2015, there was a 546% increase in ATM compromises, says Fair Isaac Corp., the company known as FICO. Based on data …

Retailers are contending with a markedly higher level of fraud this year than they did in 2015, with the fraud rate increasing from 1.32% of revenue to 1.47%, finds the 2016 LexisNexis True Cost of Fraud study. Last year marked the first time the rate was greater than 1%. When …