How do I prevent credit card theft?
Hi, everyone. Leo Notenboom here for
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So this is one of those things where it's always annoying when it happens to you.
And I want to be clear,
I don't profess to be some expert in the financial industry or even
necessarily the physical security industry.
But I do want to share some ideas because I've had this happen to me more than once.
And like I said, it's always very frustrating when it happens.
First, let me read you the question that came in.
In the last six months,
I've had to cancel my credit card three times due to fraudulent activities.
I frequently shop online.
I use Reliable, I thought, sources.
I don't let them save credit card info.
I always check for HPPS, etc.
I seldom use my credit card at stores and when I do, I watch it carefully.
My credit card company suggested either
a computer virus or a malware or possibly leaks with online merchants.
I have McAf online.
Could they be missing a virus or malware?
How can I determine where the leak is and how on earth can I shop safely online?
It angers me that I'm held hostage
by these hackers every time I've had my credit card compromised.
Can't we get smarter than them?
Boy, sometimes it certainly seems like we can't, doesn't it?
It also seems that for every barrier we put into place to protect our credit card
use, hackers find new ways to jump over
that barrier and steal what we had just now more securely protected.
Let's look at some of my ideas on the things that you might need to consider.
Having your credit card compromised that many times is indeed somewhat concerning.
To be clear, like I said, this has happened to me.
I had it happen on a business trip years ago.
I was going to Las Vegas probably for something like Comdex or the consumer
electronic show, and I had not one but two credit card compromises during that trip.
Now, I have theories on why they both happened, but what was scary about that is
I was in Vegas and I didn't have a working credit card.
I didn't know if I was going to have to wash dishes to pay for my room.
Fortunately, my credit card company had
my back and FedExed me a replacement card in time for me to check out.
To answer your first question, could anti malware tools be missing something?
Yes, absolutely.
The thing is, there is no perfect anti malware tool.
All security software can miss something.
One of my recommendations for someone in your situation where this has happened
multiple times is indeed, I would look at your computer first.
That would be one of the common threads here.
I would indeed scan it completely for malware using your default tools,
doing a full scan, not a quick scan, but then also consider using additional
tools, things like malware bites or a couple of others that will potentially
scan for more things or other things than your default tool does.
It's not that one is going to be better than the other.
They're going to overlap,
but they're also going to not overlap in some interesting ways.
And by having that increased coverage, you're going to reduce the probability
that both of them will actually miss something important.
Remember that this is one of those
scenarios where this could all be explained by malicious software.
It could all be explained by a key logger on your machine.
You type in your credit card,
they capture it, it gets compromised, you get a new credit card.
What do you do with your next purchase?
You type it in, the key logger captures it again.
So yes, absolutely, one of the first things I would consider
in your scenario is taking care to make sure your machine is in fact secure.
Now, it is slightly less possible, but still something to be aware of is
that other machines on your network could be involved.
So check the network, check your other machines,
make sure that they are secure, make sure that your router is secure,
because of course, all of your information is going through your router.
These are the things that are in your
control that you have the ability to ensure are as secure as possible.
I know that, especially because you're
here on Ask Leo, we're concerned about the technology, but my sense is that more
credit card theft actually happens off of our technology.
It's not necessarily your computer.
It's not necessarily your network.
I agree, repeated issues for you specifically make it sound like your PC,
and this is one of the reasons I focused on that first.
But in general, shopping online is actually safer than shopping in person.
Here's one of the big reasons why.
What's one of the things you do, typically, when you make a purchase?
You hand your credit card to somebody else.
They do something with it.
Sometimes they actually take it out of your eyesight,
and I suspect that that's where one of my compromises happened years ago.
But it's also possible that they could be
doing something surreptitious with the card.
Or the machine that you put the card
into has what's called a skimmer on it and is capturing your data,
even though the card never leaves your hand.
These are the kinds of things to be very
cautious of when you are using your credit card in the real world.
I always refer to it as don't piss off the waiter.
That's because you're about to hand them your credit card.
If you piss them off, they could do something with it.
Now, granted, they don't.
Good wait staff is not going to do that stuff.
But there are scenarios and there have been stories of places where, yes,
the wait staff has an organization behind it that is very carefully cloning cards
that are handed to them using equipment that is perhaps in the back
of the restaurant, wherever they take their cards to.
So that's one of the reasons that many
places are moving to technology where you never do give your card to somebody else.
That's one of the reasons that exists, so that the card is always in your
possession and is always something that you see and never leaves your sight.
The other scenario, one that is completely
out of our control are compromised databases.
We hear about breaches all the time, and most of the time,
our credit card information is not included in those breaches.
It's something that you typically will
find is called out very explicitly when the breach finally gets reported.
There may be all sorts of other personally identifiable information, email addresses,
phone numbers, physical addresses, names, and so forth, but they're always very
careful to point out that no credit card information was included.
Except when it was.
There are scenarios where breaches have
managed to capture credit card information.
That's the stuff that, again, you and I have no control over.
We can work on it by only using reputable places,
making online purchases from reputable sources.
But again, we're trusting even those reputable sources to be doing their
security right, to be storing their credit card information properly.
And to be clear, while I understand not wanting to store the credit card
information, there's no guarantee that they don't
simply by using the credit card on the site.
Again, a reputable place, shouldn't.
But again, you've just handed over your
credit card information to an online store.
Typically, it's much more safer than handing it over to a person in a physical
situation, but the possibility is still there.
Now, to be clear, I'm very comfortable continuing to use my credit cards online.
Like I said, it is
demonstrably more secure than using physical credit cards in the real world.
But that doesn't mean you should always let your guard down.
You do need to be careful who you shop with, where you shop,
and you should be keeping an eye on your credit card statement.
It is an inconvenience when it happens,
and hopefully your credit card company will have your back when it does.
Mine certainly has every time it's happened to me.
But vigilance is always a good idea.
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I'm Leo Notenbaum, and this is
Askleo.com. Thanks for watching.