You’ve heard of carjacking, in which a thief hops into your car and commandeers the vehicle. Now, there’s an online equivalent operated by hackers. With formjacking, they can virtually “hop in” via malicious code inserted onto your website’s checkout forms. At that point they “jack” your customer’s data, making off with their credit card number and other personal information.
It’s already happened to major websites like TicketMaster and British Airways, affecting hundreds of thousands of customers. However, much like other forms of online theft, hackers are not opposed to targeting smaller businesses as well. No, they won’t necessarily gain half a million credit card numbers by taking this route, but small business websites are often much easier to crack. Therefore, the work required is minimal, and the criminal still gains plenty of data which they can use to commit theft and fraud.
The internet security company, Norton, reports that formjacking is on the rise. Since August 13 of this year, their software has detected almost a quarter of a million formjacking attempts, with a significant rise in incidents in September. There is no reason to believe that this trend won’t continue, at least for now.
Luckily, most formjacking attempts can be blocked, via protective software and other sound internet security protocol. But if large companies like TicketMaster can succumb, we should all take note. That hack inconvenienced thousands of customers, who were forced to request new credit and debit cards, and now must monitor their credit reports for damage. And of course, the company is no doubt embarrassed by the data breach.
If your business uses online checkout forms to process customer debit or credit card numbers, you know that top-notch website security is imperative to preventing damaging events. Since web security requires multiple steps to double-check all modes of possible entry, give us a call at 888-RING-MY-TECH. We can examine your current security protocol, recommend further safety measures, and above all, help you keep your customers safe and happy.
