Not so long ago, payments cyber fraud was done primarily by brute force, through guessing passwords and usernames — a scattershot approach akin to trial and error, conducted by lone individuals or small groups. However, that’s changing.
In an interview with PYMNTS, Jim Lerdal — executive vice president of operations at PULSE, a Discover Financial Services company focused on transaction routing and settlement services — said that kind of fraud is becoming institutionalized and smarter.
“Fraud is an industry for the crooks now. They are developing job rules. They’re developing product roadmaps. They are hiring people from the industry. They are gaining insight into how the transaction flows work,” he said.
Their efforts are also widespread and nonstop, said Lerdal of the cybercriminals who band together to attack financial institutions (FIs) and their end customers. They seek to test every new payment type (across small and large merchants), as well as pinpoint weaknesses in firms’ fraud detection and mitigation programs.