A recent European data breach has rung alarm bells worldwide. According to the Wall Street Journal European law-enforcement officials discovered a high tech identity theft ring that funnels account data to Pakistan and has affected big retailers like Walmart Stores and Tesco in Britain.
What has raised alarm bells, in addition to the fact that account information was being sent to a county that al Qaeda uses as a base, is the use of untraceable devices and a sophisticated program that makes the data breach very hard to detect. In fact, Joel F. Brenner, the U.S. government’s top counterintelligence officer said
Pretty small but intelligent criminal organizations are pulling off transnational, multi-continent heists that only a foreign intelligence service would have been able to do a few years ago.
The Pakistan identity theft ring placed a 4 ounce card capable of wireless communication under the motherboard of credit card readers made in China. The bug would read credit or debit card information, store it and then call a Lahore Pakistan server once a day to upload the data.
What made their system almost undetectable was a sophisticated program that would only upload account information sporadically, changing the pattern of the theft to avoid detection. The bug would also communicate with the server in Pakistan to receive new instructions daily and could even be told to become inactive to avoid detection.
So far hundreds of tampered credit card readers have been found in Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark. Investigators can only tell the tampered readers by weight as there are no indications externally. The investigation is continuing and is likely to find many more data breaches though it is uncertain whether this particular scheme may have been implemented anywhere outside Europe.
According to the WSJ the ring has made repeated bank withdrawals and online purchases, including airline tickets, in several countries including the United States. Early estimates peg the loss in the $50 to $100 million range. Hard to believe that everyday good citizens ‘could be’ contributing to terrorists to the tune of $100 million or more. The key there is ‘could be’ as there has been no official blame put on al-Qaeda or anyone for that matter. Still it is alarming that identity theft rings from far away countries can steal our personal information and withdraw money from our bank account or charge our credit cards. Terrorists or not, we all know they are not up to anything good.
If you have not taken the time to educate yourself about the threat of identity theft I think this gives you a clear and present reason to do so. In the last three years over 217 million Americans had some form of personal information exposed by a data breach and over 25 million Americans have become victims of this crime. Data breaches are still increasing. Street gangs and sophisticated identity theft rings have already been busted but far more have not been uncovered. Large criminal rings like the mafia, biker gangs and even terrorists have far more resources and if not already involved will be soon. This is not meant to scare you, it is simply reality. Please follow the link to learn about the best identity theft protection services available. Your financial security is far too important to leave unprotected.