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The Charmaga brothers case, says Mark Fullbrook, Cyber-Ark’s UK and

Ireland director, in which the three men created a raft of fake

payment cards - using data sourced through illegal channels - and used

them to draw cash from ATMs, as well as make luxury goods purchases,

shows how valuable stolen card data can be.

"Card fraud hit a five-year high in the UK last year and this case is

just the tip of iceberg. Granted, the three brothers have received

more than 11 years in prison between them, but they have left a trail

of financial devastation behind them, he added.

And with card fraud approaching the 170 million pounds mark last year

in the UK alone, Fullbrook said that companies should now be

protecting their customer’s financial records more than ever before.

Chip & PIN technology, he explained, has dramatically reduced the

level of retail card fraud involving the use of stolen, but legitimate

cards, but criminals are now turning to cloning cards - often using

data obtained illegally on the Internet - for their income stream.

The fact was rammed home, he says, when police confiscated around 600

cards ready to be used by fraudsters, as well as card details on more

than 3,400 people’s accounts in the possession of the brothers.

Stopping card fraud at the company level, he went on to say, is now a

pre-requisite of effective security at any company that accepts

plastic payments, whether in person, over the phone or on the

Internet.

"And protecting that data is essential to protecting any company’s

reputation, so the use of data vaulting to protect customer’s

financial details is a must-have," he said.

If your company does not protect its customer records and card

details are traced back to your firm, you run the risk of not easily

being able to accept card payments in the future. That, coupled with

the risks of reputational and legal damage, should be enough to

persuade any company of the need to secure customer data," he added.