Fraudsters are targeting the popularity of online banking

Fraud losses on UK credit cards are down by 28 per cent this year at a total loss of £440 million the UK Cards Association said.

Fraud losses when UK cards were used abroad also fell by almost half to £122.7 million.

However criminals are now targeting online banking, which has risen in popularity in recent years. The most popular methods are tricking people to enter their details and infecting home computers with software that collects these details.

The number of “phishing” attacks where people are tricked into entering their personal details on a website or email was up by 16 per cent in the same period, and online banking fraud has risen by 14 per cent to total £59.7 million in 2009.

Mel Morris, from online security software firm Prevx said, ‘It’s possible to buy a kit online for a few thousand pounds and you can be in the business of trying to perpetrate online fraud. Merchants are trying to tighten up their site controls to stop credit cards being stolen en-masse. Payment analysis processes are slowly making it harder to use a stolen card’.