Attacks on payment systems trail other cybercrimes

Target's massive data breach last year caused consumers to panic and drew attention to Internet crime. Yet a new study finds that breaches on retailer payment systems are less common than other kinds of attacks.

More than twice as many of last year's Internet data breaches resulted from various small online acts, such people clicking on malicious Web links and choosing easy-to-guess passwords.

A worldwide report from Verizon is considered to be one of the top annual looks at Internet-related crime. It's due out Wednesday.

While such large-scale attacks such as Target's grab headlines, the number of breaches of payment systems has fallen in recent years. In 2013, there were just 198 recorded breaches of payment systems, or 14 percent of the total.

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Citation: Attacks on payment systems trail other cybercrimes (2014, April 23) retrieved 23 April 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2014-04-payment-trail-cybercrimes.html
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