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Banking Details Sold In Nigeria
Doug Caverly
Staff Writer
2006-08-15
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
Nigeria is not a pleasant place in the minds of security-conscious computer owners (as the country relates to that particular issue, anyway). First it acted as home to many phishing attempts and spam e-mails. Now information about thousands of British bank accounts is being sold in that nation.
"Fraudsters in Nigeria were able to find internet banking data stored on recycled PCs sent from the UK to Africa," according to a BBC article. The cliché "no good deed goes unpunished" comes to mind.
"People are still being urged to give away their old PCs, but only after they have wiped the hard drive - not just to remove any bank details but also other personal information such as home addresses," the article continued.
Owen Roberts, an anti-fraud expert, agreed that stronger measures than a simple "deletion" are necessary. He recommended using a program "which over-writes what is already contained on the drive." Otherwise, "it is surprising how easy it is to obtain documents people leave on their computers," he said.
Assistant Commissioner Phil Jones (the Information Commissioner's Office is "the UK government's regulatory office dealing with data protection) thought that businesses also had a certain responsibility in this realm of security.
"It is essential that companies have appropriate procedures in place to ensure that personal records on computer hard drives are rendered unrecoverable when they dispose of computer equipment," Jones said.
The BBC piece stated that the bank account details were being sold for as little as 20 pounds, or about $38.
Tag: Stolen bank details
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About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for SecurityProNews, InternetFinancialNews, SearchNewz, and WebProNews.
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