Security experts blame online gangs over the increasing number of data breaches in financial institution mostly based in the United States.
According to a recent survey conducted by Verizon Business, there are nearly 100 data breaches in 2008 which affected more than 285 million records of consumers from all over the world, with fear that this number can rise if authorities will fail to stop cyber gangs which mostly target banking and financial institutions.
The company also said that nearly 93 percent of records last year are breaches from financial companies, a huge increase compared to 2007.
Meanwhile, security experts are focusing on one Russian cyber gang which has been discovered to infiltrate more than 300 financial firms most of which located in the US, adding that this online criminals are using web-based service to hack accounts.
Verizon Business Investigative Response director Bryan Sartin said that online fraudsters and criminals are usually under organized groups operating mostly in Eastern Europe.
Earlier reports said that financial firm RBS WorldPay has been attacked by online criminals who stole nearly $10 million. The company official confirmed the report and said that the hackers used a program that works by manipulating the balances on cash cards and prepaid credits of people.
According to RBS WorldPay, the stolen money was distributed by hackers in several ATMs in different parts of the US, allowing their cohorts to withdraw millions of dollars. With this event, security experts warn financial firms to use sophisticated anti-hacking software to prevent such incident from happening again.
Meanwhile, financial firms are not the only main target of online fraudster as criminals have also started to victimize social networking members. According to experts, one of the most common tools used by online criminals is dummy websites which ask people their usernames and password to avail a free sample of a product. After the users type this information, their account will be hacked.
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