One Way Stolen Identities Are Used for Fraud
Aazdak Alisimo
Given the number of credit card transactions that happen across the world each and every day, the technology behind the transfers is shockingly simple. That black stripe you see on the back of the card is the focal point of the transaction.
The black stripe is known as the magstripe. It is an imprinting of magnetized particles that contains on the relevant information on the card holder that is needed to process a purchase, money withdrawal or any other task associated with the use of the card.
Given the serious cash being moved through plastic, the technology inbedded in the back of your cards must be very advanced right? Nope. Invented in the 1970s, it is as antiquated as a computer from 1980 compared to a laptop today.
As technology has advanced over the years, the technology has come on the market that can be used to tweak credit and ATM cards with ease. The device is known as a magstripe rewriter and it can be used to re-write your life.
The magstripe device is so easy it is silly. It comes with software that lets you load the rewriter with the identity of someone. Swipe the card twice and that is it. You now have a new identity to use when shopping till you drop.
If the process seems familiar, it is. You have used it at least once and probably a couple of times in your life. When you opened a bank account, you were given an ATM card. To activate it, you used a version of the re-writer.
So, how do thieves use this information? Well, they don't go out and get credit card blanks. Instead, they buy monetary gift cards from banks. They then put your information on the card and jack up the available balance on the gift card.
At this point, the world is their oyster. They can pretty much shop and charge till they drop unless some observant clerk puts a kibosh on them. As you have probably noticed, most clerks are not particularly attuned to such things.
As technology continues to advance, the world of plastic transactions is going to come under more and more sophisticated attacks. While credit card accounts will probably exist for a long time, credit cards may not.
Aazdak Alisimo writes about
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