Understanding the risk
Online fraud affects both businesses and their customers. Responsible data collection, trained staff, secure payment systems and careful transaction monitoring are essential safeguards.
The historical Cyber Source reference below is retained from the original article. Its “last year” figure of $10.5 billion has no publication year in the source and should not be read as a current market statistic.
E-Fraud: A Growing Threat
Compared to last year's $10.5 billion, e-merchants have more to gain in terms of revenues, but also more to lose when it comes to e-fraud. New data from Cyber Source indicates while credit card information and most identities are stolen in the offline World, often that information is used in the online World to perpetuate fraud. Cyber Source concludes business that sell online should employ good business practices to help protect themselves and their customers against online fraud.
Protecting Your Business Against Online Fraud
- Develop and publish a clear, comprehensive privacy policy.
- Train employees to understand the privacy policy and apply it consistently.
- Review the privacy policy regularly and monitor compliance.
- Only ask customers for information that is absolutely necessary to complete a transaction.
- Store only absolutely necessary data elements. Once a payment is complete, there is no reason to maintain payment information in readable form.
- Verify the payment system that you implement deletes temporary data files with payment records.
- Make certain server log files do not inadvertently store customer payment information.
- Limit employee access to payment systems and monitor those who have access to sensitive data or payment systems.
- Use fraud-detection technology suited to online transactions.
- Follow up on suspicious transactions and immediately report any security breach or loss of computer systems to police.