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Criminals refine phishing techniques

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Banks saw criminals greatly refine the methods they used to persuade customers to disclose confidential information. Banks therefore continued to warn customers through awareness campaigns such as ‘Hang up! Click away! Call your bank!’

Phishing emails were becoming more professional in appearance and contained fewer language errors, making them harder to recognise. Criminals also responded cleverly to current events, for example by exploiting the introduction of new debit cards. In telephone calls, criminals posing as bank employees mainly tried to panic customers into disclosing their login codes: ‘I need your login details now to prevent a criminal from transferring your money to another account.’ Banks, and organisations such as the police, never ask for login codes.

Phishing losses

Phishing losses amounted to €2.8 million in the first half of 2015. Although this was more than in the second half of 2014, losses remained low compared with earlier years, when they often ran into tens of millions of euros. Successful technical measures by banks limited losses from other forms of cybercrime, such as malicious software, to €300,000. Total online banking fraud losses therefore amounted to €3.1 million.

Skimming

Following the introduction of the EMV chip and the standard blocking of debit cards for use outside Europe (geoblocking), skimming had accounted for a relatively small share of fraud losses since the second half of 2013: €790,000. Skimming losses had almost disappeared in the Netherlands. Most losses arose because cards were skimmed outside Europe after geoblocking had been disabled.

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