Top 10 Fraud Trends Predicted for 2010

1. ACH/Wire transfer attacking small/medium businesses: Fraudsters are targeting the ACH (automated clearing house) network for clearance of electronic funds to send illegitimate corporate wire transfers. In 2010, they are expected to focus more on small- and medium-sized businesses as larger businesses increase security.

2. Attacks via Vendor-managed servers: Businesses that outsource their transactional network servers must ensure those vendors maintain acceptable security levels.

3. ATM skimming: Because skimming machines look identical to legitimate ATM/card reader devices, this is a difficult fraud method to detect and prevent.

4. First party fraud: Criminals gradually establish good credit using an alias with a card issuer or business and then “bust out,” running up enormous debt and abandoning the credit account. This is also difficult to detect and prevent.

5. Phishing: Email “phishing” attacks that illegally solicit victims’ personal information with official-looking requests are becoming more sophisticated, and increased 600% during 2009 according to the Anti Phishing Working Group.

6. Check fraud: Fraudsters have easy access to paper, printers and scanners to create phony checks. In addition, hackers can obtain detailed personal banking information from online check viewing services.

7. Internal fraud: Employees are increasingly a source of corporate fraud, as are contractors, business partners and suppliers.

8. Mobile phones: Mobile phone fraud is not yet a major problem but inevitably will rise as mobile phones increase in popularity and functionality. Web-enabled mobile phones are vulnerable to the same types of worms and viruses as PCs.

9. Online application fraud: Similar to first party fraud, this involves criminals manipulating multiple online applications using multiple identities from multiple access points.

10. Prepaid cards: Prepaid cards are a popular item for criminals to buy with stolen credit cards, and also customers often steal them from stores and then have them activated to obtain free spending power.