Experian figures show just why we need EC3 and an industry strategy for countering Cyber Crime

Following recent news from Experian that more than 12 million pieces of personal information have been illegally traded over the internet in the first four months of 2012 got me thinking about whether there is a disconnect between people’s attitudes to securing their personal details online and their actual behaviour.

Some recent findings from the Eurobarometer on cyber security came out recently. The research was conducted by the European Commission and is probably the first EU-wide consumer research of its kind and shows that security is increasingly becoming a mainstream issue among consumers. The reports finds that although 89% avoid disclosing personal information online and 74% believe that the risk of being a victim has increased in the past year, a staggering 53% have not changed any of their online passwords in the last year! It’s worth noting here, that whilst no security solution should reply on a change of consumer behaviour to be effective, nevertheless, the role of consumer education in this area can never be understated.

Why is this disconnect a problem?

As I have mentioned before in my previous blog, there are a number of ways in which data can be stolen and we must assume that all channels can be compromised and encourage people and businesses to alter their behaviours accordingly since fraudsters are becoming more determined than ever to get hold of the information they need. Just recently we have noticed a trend for fraudsters targeting the high rollers.  Nowadays, the theft and trade of personal data leads to cross-channel fraud – this means that personal information or data stolen on one channel (e.g. online) is used to commit fraud on another channel (e.g. telephone); this calls for banks and service providers to implement a holistic, multi-channel security approach that can be applied to secure all transactions channels – telecommunications based security solutions are ideally designed to enable this holistic approach

Too often silos in banks prevent early detection and effective prevention of fraud, in particular sophisticated cross-channel fraud. Telecommunications based security solutions available today are sophisticated enough to be able to address such a problem – as an industry we need to take the steps to move to this new standard. The good news for banks is that such technology can sit as an extra layer on top of their current security infrastructure investments thereby at least continuing to realise an RoI.

However, as a welcome backdrop to the findings of the Eurobarometer report are the plans for a European Cyber Centre (or EC3 as it’s being called). EC3 will help protect Europeans and businesses against mounting cyber-threats by focusing on illegal online activities carried out by organised crime groups, especially attacks targeting e-banking and other online financial activities. My thoughts on this initiative are that it is a perfect backdrop against which to promote an awareness campaign to educate and fight cross-channel fraud, whilst as an industry we move to a new paradigm of fraud detection and prevention.