- Email: [email protected]
New data protection Registrar begins work
October 1994
Computer Fraud & Security Bulletin
group in London. According to the European Leisure Software Publishers Association, on connection with US bulletin boards the hackers have been capturing games valued at millions of dollars. These are then sold or given away via about 30 bulletin boards in the UK. The Association has closed five illegal bulletin boards in the UK during the last year - there are
appeared to be genuine payroll cheques. The banks started noticing the problem when high-speed sorting machines spat out the phoney cheques because the laser-printed copies did not have the account number coded in magnetic ink, as they should do.
estimated to be 1200. British Telecom claims no knowledge of the hackers bypassing the toll system; they plan to look into the fraud.
Losses to all kinds of cheque fraud are estimated to cost between $5 billion and $10 billion a year. Some banks are trying to make their cheques harder to copy, putting small holograms
Spot the high-tech forged cheques
on them and using special inks and printing processes that cannot be duplicated by copiers or scanners. Some banks are giving tellers scanners to determine if the account number on
The
increasing
sophistication
of desktop
publishing has led to the counterfeiting of virtually undetectable fraudulent cheques, reports The New York Times. In the United States, the banks and law enforcement officials estimate the cost to the economy will reach $1 billion this year. The criminals are inputting images of good cheques drawn on good accounts into their computers. They change the date, the name of payee and sometimes the cheque number, and make numerous copies of the fake cheque on a laser printer loaded with cheque paper. The American Bankers Association said that desktop publishing counterfeits are the biggest crime problem facing the banks.
a cheque is printed with magnetic ink. Many criminals have quickly discovered that laser printers that print with magnetic ink are available making the counterfeit cheque undetectable even to machines.
DATA PRIVACY NEWS New Data Protection Registrar begins work In the UK, the new Data Protection Registrar, Mrs. Elizabeth France, is faced with deciding whether to press for amendments to the existing 1984 Data Protection
In California, transactions involving fraudulent cheques rose five-fold last year at Wells Fargo Bank alone. In New York State, Chemical Bank reports a 50% increase so far this year. More and more businesses are saving themselves bank cheque fees by printing their own cheques with standard laser printers. These are also available to the criminals, as are scanners and graphics packages to copy logos and cheque designs. Once the counterfeit cheque is created it still has to be turned into cash. A gang in Los Angeles has an accomplice in a Californian bank who makes photocopies of cheques from large companies as they pass through the bank’s cheque clearing system. ‘Mules’ pass the cheques in return for 20% of the takings. The gang also manufacturers fake ID cards for the companies whose cheques are being forged. Tellers seemed happy to cash what
2
enforcement,
Act in order to facilitate
its
or to wait for changes resulting from
the EC Draft Directive on Data Protection
which
is currently under review. The EC Directive is not expected to be adopted in the UK before 1997. The Office of the Data Protection Registrar is to hold a further series of seminars. These are aimed at assisting computer users from all types of business and organizations to gain greater insight into the requirements of the Data Protection Act. The aim of the seminars is to give practical guidance on how the Data Protection Act applies to a wide range of computing activities and to address many of the most frequently asked questions about Data Protection in practice. For further information contact the Office of the Data Protection Registrar on t44 (0)625 535717.
01994
Elsevier Science Ltd
Computer Fraud & Security Bulletin
group in London. According to the European Leisure Software Publishers Association, on connection with US bulletin boards the hackers have been capturing games valued at millions of dollars. These are then sold or given away via about 30 bulletin boards in the UK. The Association has closed five illegal bulletin boards in the UK during the last year - there are
appeared to be genuine payroll cheques. The banks started noticing the problem when high-speed sorting machines spat out the phoney cheques because the laser-printed copies did not have the account number coded in magnetic ink, as they should do.
estimated to be 1200. British Telecom claims no knowledge of the hackers bypassing the toll system; they plan to look into the fraud.
Losses to all kinds of cheque fraud are estimated to cost between $5 billion and $10 billion a year. Some banks are trying to make their cheques harder to copy, putting small holograms
Spot the high-tech forged cheques
on them and using special inks and printing processes that cannot be duplicated by copiers or scanners. Some banks are giving tellers scanners to determine if the account number on
The
increasing
sophistication
of desktop
publishing has led to the counterfeiting of virtually undetectable fraudulent cheques, reports The New York Times. In the United States, the banks and law enforcement officials estimate the cost to the economy will reach $1 billion this year. The criminals are inputting images of good cheques drawn on good accounts into their computers. They change the date, the name of payee and sometimes the cheque number, and make numerous copies of the fake cheque on a laser printer loaded with cheque paper. The American Bankers Association said that desktop publishing counterfeits are the biggest crime problem facing the banks.
a cheque is printed with magnetic ink. Many criminals have quickly discovered that laser printers that print with magnetic ink are available making the counterfeit cheque undetectable even to machines.
DATA PRIVACY NEWS New Data Protection Registrar begins work In the UK, the new Data Protection Registrar, Mrs. Elizabeth France, is faced with deciding whether to press for amendments to the existing 1984 Data Protection
In California, transactions involving fraudulent cheques rose five-fold last year at Wells Fargo Bank alone. In New York State, Chemical Bank reports a 50% increase so far this year. More and more businesses are saving themselves bank cheque fees by printing their own cheques with standard laser printers. These are also available to the criminals, as are scanners and graphics packages to copy logos and cheque designs. Once the counterfeit cheque is created it still has to be turned into cash. A gang in Los Angeles has an accomplice in a Californian bank who makes photocopies of cheques from large companies as they pass through the bank’s cheque clearing system. ‘Mules’ pass the cheques in return for 20% of the takings. The gang also manufacturers fake ID cards for the companies whose cheques are being forged. Tellers seemed happy to cash what
2
enforcement,
Act in order to facilitate
its
or to wait for changes resulting from
the EC Draft Directive on Data Protection
which
is currently under review. The EC Directive is not expected to be adopted in the UK before 1997. The Office of the Data Protection Registrar is to hold a further series of seminars. These are aimed at assisting computer users from all types of business and organizations to gain greater insight into the requirements of the Data Protection Act. The aim of the seminars is to give practical guidance on how the Data Protection Act applies to a wide range of computing activities and to address many of the most frequently asked questions about Data Protection in practice. For further information contact the Office of the Data Protection Registrar on t44 (0)625 535717.
01994
Elsevier Science Ltd