Boston, MA 02/06/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) was the unsuspecting victim of over 5,600 events of credit card compromise, during the massive holiday shopping season last December. However, there has since been even more alarming results from an Identity Fraud Study conducted by premier service providers in this niche – Javeline Strategy & Research. The company during the course of its investigations found that the incidence of Identity Theft was as high as ‘one victim, every two seconds.’ Apparently, the study does not include Target’s sequence of data compromise but a study conducted in October last.
Security practices ineffective
According to analysts at Javelin, Alphonse Pascual, businesses of the likes of Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) are today the target of systematic identity theft and are ‘easy’ as the current group of security practices followed are largely ineffective.
Money theft drops
According to the analysts the conclusions drawn are the fact that identity theft is higher over actual money fraud. Fortunately, money fraud with payment card theft had actually dropped drastically over the past year. In 2012 the average money theft through cards was in the region of $21 billion, this time around it is $18 billion. One of the main reasons for the drop in the actual money theft is because of higher precautionary processes in place at the financial business houses. These are known to move very swiftly to block and shut down accounts which indicate fraudulent practices.
However, for other stakeholders such as Adam Levin who chairs the organization Identity Theft 911, the issue is not about loss of money but the compromise on the identity of the person. Sharing the long term consequences of such theft, and the disruptive nature of events which typically follow such Identity thefts, Levin admits that this is criminal activity.
Card Theft eventually leads to victimization
According to Javelin’s studies, card compromises such as those which occurred at Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) happen at two levels. When card is compromised money theft is followed by fraud, which victimizes the card owners. Other accounts where cards are not used are also soon compromised.
Secondly, 28% of the new frauds indulge in ‘account takeovers’ and do not necessarily use card owner details to open new account.
According to Steve Schwartz at Intersections Inc, the possibility is high that of the nearly 40 million compromises at Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) last month, the likely fraud would be about one-third of them.
