“The
campaign seeks to raise awareness among Jamaicans about possible online threats
to their accounts and finances and empowers customers, through education, to
enable them to develop good online-safety habits”
Banking Sector
commenting on the Protect Yourself Online! Initiative
Cybercrime
is on the rise in Jamaica. With the holidays coming up, scammers have now
turned to skimming and phishing.
Banks,
naturally are uniting against this via their Protect Yourself Online!
Initiative as detailed in the article “Jamaican
Banks Unite Against Cybercrime”, published Sunday October 9, 2016, The Jamaica Gleaner.
This initiative, launched on Friday September 30th 2016, sees the following banks uniting to raise awareness about Credit/Debit Card skimming and steps to thwart would-be criminals:
1.
CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank
2.
First Global Bank
3.
JMMB Merchant Bank
4.
National Commercial Bank Jamaica
5.
Sagicor Bank
6.
Scotiabank Jamaica
This
is the banking industry's response to the rise in ABM Skimming which saw a rash
of Debit Card account thefts on Wednesday August 14th 2016 as reported in my blog article
entitled “How
Jamaicans are ABM Skimming NCB and Scotia Debit and Credit Cards for Christmas
2016”.
For
more on the campaign and security tips, you can www.stopthinkconnect.org.jm. So
how does this campaign work?
The Banking Sector's
Protect Yourself Online! Initiative - More advertising for Banks as Take Style
Out 2016 approaches
The
banking sector is basically doing some well needed PR to make customers more
aware that they can be robbed. Instead of just going Mobile Money, which is
more secure, they've decided to just do more advertising.
After
all, Take Style Out 2016, out version of Fashion Night Out, has been pushed
back to Thursday October 27th 2016 due to Hurricane Matthew as
reported in the article “#TrackingMatthew:
TSO postponed until October 27”, published Monday, October 03, 2016, The Jamaica Observer.
That puts it right before payday and gives skimmers more time to plan how they can steal Debit Card and Credit Cards from shoppers on that night as a test-run for Christmas 2016. Still, the tips given by the Protect Yourself Online! Initiative are somewhat helpful:
1.
Inspect the machine for items installed
over PIN pad.
2.
Avoid ABMs that have attachments pointed
in the direction of the PIN pad. This may be a hidden camera to record your
PIN.
3.
Once inside an ABM, lightly pull the
card slot to uncover signs of tampering, which include a loose or detached card
slot, or the presence of double-sided tape that may be used by skimmers to
ensure quick and easy removal.
4.
Use the unoccupied hand to cover the
hand entering the PIN on a keypad. This can prevent recording by pinhole
cameras.
5.
Be aware of the ABM's surroundings and
any possible loiterers.
6.
Do not accepting assistance from
strangers when using ABMs
So
will all of these initiatives work?
Protect Yourself
Online! Initiative will not Work - Mobile Money, secure POS terminals needed
All
this will not stop phishing attacks as more Jamaican are shopping online than
ever before and using Debit and Credit Cards as reported in my blog article
entitled “How
Electronic Transactions in Jamaica can eliminate Hidden Economy via Universal
Consumption Taxation”.
The
JIS (Jamaica Information Service) hack in June 2015 proves that we're
susceptible to clicking on unknown links from an email as noted in my blog article
entitled “Anatomy
of ISIS hack of the JIS Website - How and Why Hactivists couldn't access
sensitive GOJ Databases”.
The
following hack of the Ministry of Transport and Works website in February 2016
by Islamic hackers as reported in my blog article
entitled “How
Islamic Cybergroup Team Emirates hacked the Ministry of Transport and Works”
clearly indicated that the weakest link is still people.
Jamaicans,
it seems, like to click on things even if its from someone they don’t know!!
They just can’t resist the temptation.
Then
there is the fact that Jamaican staff working in stores that do Debit Card transactions
can have friends secretly ship down skimmers and use them while on the job to
copy Debit and Credit Cards. Though unlikely, it can happen, especially if the
transaction results in your card being out of your sight for a few seconds.
This
as its way too easy to copy that magnetic strip and the PIN number, as too many
organizations make magnetic strip blanks in Jamaica. This makes it necessary to
enable POS devices with the ability to check Card numbers against the magnetic
strip in the banks database to see if the card is cloned, as biometric security
can be thwarted.
Scammers
are not more sophisticated as they now understand the banking system better and
know how to launder money after stealing it as I'd predicted in my blog article
entitled “How
Scammers and Hackers are on the Rebound Laundering Money as Peter Bunting
misguided on Scammers”.
Most
ABM scammers usually withdraw their cash within 24 hrs of stealing the card
info or convert the money to other forms, such as bitcoins or deposit the money
into a Paypal Account linked to a Payoneer Card as described in my MICO Wars blog article
entitled “How
Jamaicans can make money online – Setting up a Payoneer Prepaid Mastercard”.
So
a word of warning; go Mobile Money as suggested in my blog article
entitled “How
NCB Quisk Compares to CONEC Mobile Wallet as Jamaica goes Cashless”, as the
banks are just using light and magic while not addressing the security flaws in
Debit and Credit Cards.
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