Cyber fraudsters have significantly expanded their criminal activities in online trading worldwide in the past year. This is the conclusion reached by US data security service provider Lexis Nexis Risk Solutions in its published new annual report on the development of cybercrime. According to this, the number of online purchases only increased comparatively moderately by seven percent last year.
The number of attacks on e-commerce transactions initiated by human perpetrators rose much faster by 59 percent. This refers to cyber attacks that cannot be traced back to computer networks (“bots”) previously programmed by the perpetrators.
Also attacks on computer and online gambling
The authors estimate the overall growth in human-based online attacks to be 19 percent. In addition to actual online trading, this also includes attacks on bank transactions or computer and online gambling.
The basis for the evaluation is the company’s own data from the “Digital Identity Network”, a platform for verifying customer data. According to Lexis Nexis Risk Solutions, 92 billion online transactions have been evaluated. Most cyberattacks still occur in North America. The most common form, accounting for almost 29 percent of cases, is taking over an online account using stolen access data.
According to the authors, “scam centers” have emerged in remote regions of Southeast Asia – such as the border areas of Myanmar and Cambodia – which develop fraudulent fake websites and computer viruses. According to Lexis Nexis Risk Solutions, these also include call centers with supposed customer service employees who are supposed to talk victims into giving them their personal access data for online accounts.