Fergie's Tech Blog

Cyber Criminals Find Loophole in Verification Systems

Dinah Greek writes on ComputerAct!ve:

Fraudsters have hijacked a system designed to help protect retailers and consumers from credit card fraud, according to fraud protection specialists the 3rd Man.

The company claims that a serious flaw in the Address Verification System (AVS) used by retailers to check the identity and billing address of a card holder allows fraudsters to fake verification.

AVS is often used by internet retailers to check that the billing address the credit card holder gives matches the address on file at the credit card company.

It works by matching the house number and postcode numbers for each card issued. For example, 43 Crooks Close, B10 7GB would result in an AVS number of 43107.

But a 3rd Man investigator discovered that criminals are getting around this check to make fraudulent transactions look genuine.

posted by Fergie @ 6/11/2008 06:47:00 PM