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<ul><li>There has been an increase in <keyword id="43991" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="financial-fraud" source="Orion">financial fraud</keyword> amid an increase in financial transactions.</li><li>People are storing important financial information on their smartphones without any security.</li><li>88% of the people surveyed have submitted their Aadhaar as proof for applications and bookings.</li></ul> The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has revealed that 5,406 instances of financial fraud were reported during April-September 2022, up from 4,069 reports during the same period in 2021. According to the central bank, the modus operandi for fraud has shifted to card and internet-based transactions. According to a survey conducted by LocalCircles, people are still storing important financial information such as internet banking passwords, and debit and credit card PINs on their smartphones. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="17% of people store financial information on their smartphone" comment="subhead" text="17% of people store financial information on their smartphone">17% of people store financial information on their smartphone</cmsannotation> Out of over 32,000 people surveyed, 9% admitted to storing important financial information on their phone’s contact list, and 8% admitted using the notes app on their smartphone. This means that 17% of people store important data without security. A similar survey in 2021 revealed that 11% of people were storing important financial data on their phones, meaning there has been an increase in this number, despite attempts by the central bank to raise awareness among the people. 18% of the people revealed that they store financial information on their computers and laptops. At the same time, 14% of the people claimed that they had memorised their financial information and had yet to store it anywhere. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="24% of the people share their debit and credit card PIN with family" comment="subhead" text="24% of the people share their debit and credit card PIN with family">24% of the people share their debit and credit card PIN with family</cmsannotation> According to the report, 24% of the people share their debit and credit card PIN with one or more family members, and 6% share with their domestic or office staff. 67% of the people surveyed said they do not share this information with anyone. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="88% of the people share Aadhaar for applications and bookings" comment="subhead" text="88% of the people share Aadhaar for applications and bookings">88% of the people share Aadhaar for applications and bookings</cmsannotation> Identity and address proofs such as Aadhaar, PAN, driving licence and others have become something we often share with government or private entities such as banks and hotels for various applications and bookings, be it in digital form or as a photocopy. Sometimes, more than one of these documents is shared, and there is an overlap. A staggering 88% of the people have revealed that they have shared their Aadhaar as proof in the last five years. This was followed by 58% of the people sharing their PAN and 47% of the people sharing their driving licence. Additionally, 42% of the people shared their passports, and 35% shared their voter ID. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Nearly half of the people have faced a financial fraud" comment="subhead" text="Nearly half of the people have faced a financial fraud">Nearly half of the people have faced a financial fraud</cmsannotation> According to the report, 42%of the people surveyed have claimed to have faced some type of financial fraud during the three years between June 2019 to June 2022. Worse, 74% of these people failed to get their money back. We recommend that users do not store sensitive financial information such as banking passwords and debit and credit card PINs on their smartphones and laptops. Instead, users should opt for secure applications or try to memorise this information. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/most-common-passwords-can-be-easily-cracked-by-ai-in-under-a-minute/articleshow/99379900.cms">AI chatbots are cracking the code: How PassGAN can break into 51% of common passwords in under a minute</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/google-makes-it-easier-for-users-to-delete-their-account-and-data-from-applications/articleshow/99289621.cms">Google makes it easier for users to delete their account and data from applications</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/how-to-block-your-lost-or-stolen-phone-and-how-to-unblock-it/articleshow/99207569.cms">How to block your lost or stolen phone and how to unblock it</a>

Despite a rise in financial frauds, 17% of people store financial information on their smartphones

<ul><li>Emotet malware was developed as a banking trojan that steals personal information.</li><li>The malware was deactivated a year ago but has again been detected in November 2021.</li><li>This time, <keyword id="182214" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="google-chrome" source="Orion">Google Chrome</keyword> users are at risk as it targets stealing credit and <keyword id="14160108" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="debit-card-information" source="Orion">debit card information</keyword>.</li></ul>Google Chrome users are yet again at the risk of being compromised by another banking trojan. This time, it’s not a new one, but it is capable of stealing your credit and debit card information. The malware known as Emotet mainly spreads through spam mails and tempts users to click on the infected files and links. Originally, the Emotet virus was used to access the sensitive and private information of foreign devices. After staying dormant for a while, it seems like Emotet has made its way back again with its new variant that targets Google Chrome users by stealing their card information. Emotet peeks into your system and tries to steal card information like name, expiry date and card numbers from Google Chrome profiles. It collects information and then transfers it to the command-and-control (C2) server. Also, it has the ability to hide from anti-virus software. Tips to keep yourself protected from Emotet <ul><li>Install all security updates to prevent the virus from sneaking in.</li><li>Scan your system regularly and install all the necessary virus and malware protection programs.</li><li>Read the mails carefully and avoid clicking on fishy links.</li><li>Keep a backup of your data.</li></ul>Emotet is considered one of the most dangerous malware as it not only spreads via mail but also is used as a dropper for other malwares like TrickBot. TrickBot is also a banking trojan that steals and accesses personal information, financial details and account credentials by sending fraud banking links. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india/news/how-to-use-indian-railways-destination-alert-service/articleshow/92106794.cms" style="">What is Indian Railways destination alert service and how to use it</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/how-to-prevent-your-instagram-account-from-getting-hacked/articleshow/92103322.cms" style="">How to prevent your Instagram account from getting hacked</a>

This new Google Chrome malware can steal your credit and debit card information

<ul><li>Information of over 100 million debit and credit card users has been leaked online from payments processor <keyword id="3259695" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Juspay">Juspay</keyword>.</li><li>The leak includes the user’s names, contact information and information related to their debit and credit cards.</li><li>Juspay processes payments for companies like Amazon, Swiggy, MakeMyTrip and several other companies.</li><li>Cybersecurity researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia who first spotted the breach has said that it could become a lot more serious if hackers figure out the encryption algorithm.</li></ul>In what could be a major data breach, information of over 100 million debit and credit card users from payments processor Juspay has leaked on the dark web. Juspay processes payments for companies like Amazon, Swiggy, MakeMyTrip among others. The leaked data is in the form of a data dump and has been leaked through a compromised server of Juspay. Juspay has <a href="https://juspayproducts.medium.com/your-security-is-our-first-concern-8d98c96e5f17">confirmed</a> the data leak in its official blog post, outlining the details of the breach. “It pains us to inform you that a data breach did happen on 18th August 2020. Non-sensitive masked card information, mobile numbers and email ids of a subset of our users were compromised,” the company said. Cybersecurity researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia discovered the data breach. He found that the data dump was available for sale on the dark web. Speaking to Business Insider, Rajaharia noted that this data breach could be a lot more serious if the hackers figure out the encryption algorithm used to hash card numbers. Here’s what was leaked in the <keyword id="10538684" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Juspay-Data-Breach">Juspay data breach</keyword> As per Juspay, the leaked information includes non-sensitive masked card information, mobile numbers and email IDs of a subset of users. The company has said that the leaked information does not include full card numbers, order information, card PIN or password. The data on the dark web includes information such as the bank that has issued the card, card expiry date, the last four digits of the card, masked card number, card type and the user’s name, among other details. Should you be worried? Rajaharia pointed out that there could be a major risk to users if the algorithm used to hash card numbers is leaked or if the hackers figure it out on their own. A hash is a unique and fixed-length string that is mapped to a set of data. In this case, Juspay has hashed the 16-digit debit and credit card numbers in order to process transactions. If hackers can figure out the algorithm used to generate these hashes, they could use brute force and find out what the original card numbers are. Juspay has masked only six digits out of sixteen-digit card numbers. Rajaharia says that while this is good, the safety of users rests primarily on the hashing algorithm. Scammers could also exploit this data leak In addition to the risks mentioned above, Rajaharia also pointed out that scammers could exploit this data leak to dupe cardholders. Since the leak includes mobile numbers, they could call unsuspecting cardholders and trick them into revealing the full card numbers, PIN, CVV as well as one-time passwords. Rajaharia also pointed out that since these users are paying customers, they are a lot more valuable than non-paying customers. This makes the <keyword id="10540589" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="juspay-data-leak">Juspay data leak</keyword> a lot more lucrative for hackers and scammers. According to him, the seller he is in touch with has demanded $8,000 in Bitcoin to purchase the data. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/these-were-the-biggest-cyber-attacks-of-2020/slidelist/79941232.cms">From FireEye to Twitter to Covid-19 vaccine research ⁠— these were the biggest cyber attacks of 2020</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/retail/news/hackers-are-sending-customers-fake-shipping-messages-appearing-to-come-from-amazon-and-ups-as-a-shipageddon-is-expected-during-a-hectic-shopping-season/articleshow/79816866.cms">Hackers are sending customers fake shipping messages appearing to come from Amazon and UPS as a 'shipageddon' is expected during a hectic shopping season</a>

The company that processes payments for Amazon and Swiggy has reported a data leak of over 100 million debit and credit cardholders

<ul><li>In a bid to make online card transactions more secure, the Reserve Bank of India is encouraging consumers to tokenize their cards.</li><li>The central bank has directed payment aggregators, wallets and online merchants to not store any sensitive card-related consumer data.</li><li>As per the mandate, cardholders can create ‘tokens or a unique alternate code’ instead of entering their card details.</li><li><keyword id="7207738" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="tokenization" source="Orion">Tokenization</keyword> would come into effect on October 01, 2022.</li></ul>When you buy something online, you share your credit card or debit card information with the e-commerce platform. This highly sensitive data, which is now stored by the platform, is vulnerable to data theft or leakage. In an effort to make card transactions more secure, India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, has been <a href="https://rbi.org.in//scripts/FS_PressRelease.aspx?prid=53920&amp;fn=9">encouraging cardholders</a> to tokenize their cards. Simply put, tokenization is the process of substitution. It replaces sensitive data with unique identification numbers that retain all the essential information about the data without compromising its security. Imagine walking into a gaming zone or casino, where you pay with actual money in exchange for plastic coins, which hold no value outside the gaming zone’s premises. You can play Pac-man or win your favourite toys in a vending machine only with that token or coin. Similarly, with card tokenization, the idea is to mask card numbers and protect sensitive consumer data with tokens containing randomised numbers and alphabets. <div type="image" title="Tokenisation (2)" msid="93270932" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Canva&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> Currently, many businesses and merchants that are involved in an online card transaction chain store sensitive card information like its number, expiry date, etc, which is known as card-on-file (CoF), to enable smoother transactions in the future. However, the availability of card details with multiple entities increases the risk of your card data being stolen/misused. As per RBI’s new mandate, tokenization will replace sensitive payment credentials such as 16-digit plastic card numbers, names, expiry dates, and codes with a unique alternate card number, or ‘token.’ Merchants and fintech platforms cannot store your card details anymore, as per RBI. They can enable transactions through tokens, which won’t expose your confidential data but will add another layer of security. "India needs more secure online payment standards as there is an increase in digital payments. The future data protection standards that are presently being considered can eventually work with tokenization. It is a fundamental shift in the ecosystem that requires a large investment from stakeholders in the payment industry, banks, and card networks to adopt and adhere in full," Ravi Battula, VP - merchant acquiring business), Wibmo – a PayU company, told Business Insider India. As of June 24, about 19.5 crore <a href="https://rbi.org.in//scripts/FS_PressRelease.aspx?prid=53920&amp;fn=9">tokens </a>had been created. How can you create a token for your card? Domestic plastic card users can create tokens for their credit and <keyword id="6354770" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="debit-cards" source="Orion">debit cards</keyword> free of charge through any e-commerce platform or merchant website. Step 1: Visit any e-commerce/merchant website to shop your products and initiate a transaction. Step 2: As you select your payment mode, look for your preferred bank’s credit/debit card as the payment method and enter all details. Step 3: You will find a checkbox that says “secure your card” or “save card as per RBI guidelines”. Step 4: You will receive an OTP on your mobile or email from your bank or card company to finish the transaction. Step 5 – And voila, your token will be generated and saved instead of your sensitive card data. In the future, you can make your purchase by simply recognising the last 4 digits of your plastic card. This token, however, cannot be used for payment at any other e-commerce website. You can create various tokens on different e-commerce sites. Is it mandatory to tokenize your cards? No, as of August 01, the government has not made it mandatory for consumers to adopt tokenization. Those who do not wish to create a token can continue to transact as before by entering card details manually at the time of undertaking the transaction. As per RBI’s directive, by September 30, 2022 all stakeholders are advised to be ready for handling tokenized transactions, implement alternate mechanisms and create public awareness about the process of creating tokens and using them to undertake transactions.

RBI is encouraging cardholders to tokenize their cards: Here’s all you need to know about it

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Credit card skimmers are increasingly targeting the financially vulnerable nationwide.</li><li>The FBI estimates card skimming costs consumers and banks around $1 billion yearly.</li></ul><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-fake-credit-card-readers-look-real-how-avoid-skimmers-2023-7">Credit card skimmers</a> are on the rise nationwide and they're targeting the country's most financially vulnerable people.The FBI estimates that card skimming costs consumers and banks around $1 billion each year. Last year, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.fico.com/blogs/debit-card-compromises-nearly-doubled-2023-fico-data#:~:text=Now%20that%20we%27ve%20reviewed,than%20315%2C000%20impacted%20cards%20identified.">Fair, Isaac and Company</a>, a financial data analytics firm, found that debit card skimming grew by a whopping 96% compared to the previous year.Last month, the federal agents from the Secret Service swept through 472 business in Florida after reports of increased EBT scam fraud, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2024/06/27/secret-service-agents-swept-120-jacksonville-businesses-to-search-for-skimmer-devices-news4jax-got-exclusive-access/">WJXT</a> reported. Police found 13 devices statewide. The Secret Service estimated that police prevented around $1.3 million of losses through the operations, WJXT reported.Authorities nationwide say reports of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-phishing-scams-automation-detection-2024-6">card skimming and EBT fraud</a> have increased over the past year.The Washington State Department of Social and Health Services said this week it found an "alarming surge in fraud" related to EBT skimming. The agency estimates EBT recipients lost around $5.5 million over the past two years from the fraud, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/wa-facing-alarming-surge-in-ebt-card-scams/">The Seattle Times</a> reported.Authorities in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.29news.com/2024/07/03/charlottesville-social-services-warns-about-snap-ebt-scammers/">Virginia</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/news/2024/07/02/ebt-card-skimming">New York</a>, and other states have also issued similar warnings in recent weeks.The New York Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance issued an EBT scam <a target="_blank" href="https://otda.ny.gov/">alert</a> on July 2, warning of increases in card skimming and phishing. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fresno-officials-should-notice-phishing-scam-jury-trial-court-california-2024-6">Phishing</a> is a form of scamming where criminals try to obtain your personal information by pretending to be someone you know or trust; perpetrators will often send emails purporting to be from your bank or from a social media platform you use.While card skimmers are efficient in stealing data, EBT cards usually require a PIN number that they can't easily lift from the machine, according to the <a target="_blank" href="https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2024/05/protect-your-snap-benefits-illegal-card-skimmers">FTC</a>.The scammers use phishing tactics like texting or set up hidden cameras next to cash registers to steal the PIN numbers, the agency says.To avoid card skimming scams, the FTC recommends checking to see if the card reader is loose when paying, changing your EBT PIN number at least once a month, be vigilant for phishing, and regularly check the amount held in your EBT account.The NY Office of Temporary Disability also recommends checking for discoloration between the body of the machine and the card reader."The easiest way to check for a skimmer is to gently pull up on the terminal. They are flimsy and will come right off," the agency says. "If you notice any signs that a skimmer may be in use do not swipe your card and alert the store manager. Contact the police and notify your local department of social services as soon as possible."

Card skimmers are hard to spot and on the rise. Here's what you can do to protect yourself.

<ul><li>Debit and credit <keyword id="7203034" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="card-tokenization" source="Orion">card tokenization</keyword> rules will come into effect from July 1. </li><li>Cards that have not been tokenized will be removed from apps and websites. </li><li>Here’s everything you need to know about card tokenization. </li></ul>Debit and credit card tokenization rules are coming into effect from July 1, and that means any debit or credit cards you have saved on Flipkart, Amazon, Paytm or any other service will be removed if you do not tokenize your cards. But what exactly is card tokenization and why is the Reserve Bank of India pushing for it? It is worth noting that the <keyword id="30067" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="rbi" source="Orion">RBI</keyword> had pushed back card tokenization multiple times before as payment processors and ecommerce portals were not ready with the required changes. However, this time around the entire payment ecosystem is ready and the July 1 deadline will be enforced. Popular payment processors like Razorpay, PayU and others have already enabled card tokenization features in their solutions. In a conversation with Business Insider India, Razoypay’s head of product – payments, Khilan Haria said that most merchants don’t have to do anything to have card tokenization enabled. But what exactly is card tokenization and why is RBI mandating it? <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Debit and credit card tokenization explained" comment="subhead" text="Debit and credit card tokenization explained">Debit and credit card tokenization explained</cmsannotation> Whenever you make a payment online using debit or credit cards, you have to enter your card details, including the card number, your name, expiry date and the three-digit CVV. These card details are stored by the merchant’s platforms using masking and other security measures. In cases where merchants use payment processors directly instead, the card details are stored by those processors. In tokenization, your card number is replaced by a random token number. The payment processors and banks have systems in place to map your card number to the token number, so the payment is debit and credit to the correct card holder’s account. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Why RBI wants cards to be tokenized" comment="subhead" text="Why RBI wants cards to be tokenized">Why RBI wants cards to be tokenized</cmsannotation> Your card details are stored by merchants, and if their security measures are inadequate, this puts all the customers at risk. There have been several instances in the past where merchant websites have been hacked and debit and credit card details have been leaked. This is what the RBI wants to eliminate. By mandating card tokenization, the burden of security is now on payment processors and banks, not merchants. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="How to tokenize debit and credit cards?" comment="subhead" text="How to tokenize debit and credit cards?">How to tokenize debit and credit cards?</cmsannotation> The next time you pay online for something using your debit or credit card, the payment processor will ask you if you want to “Save card as per RBI guidelines” or “Secure your card”. Click on save and enter the OTP you receive on your mobile number. That’s it, your card is now tokenized. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Will I receive card-based offers if I tokenize cards?" comment="subhead" text="Will I receive card-based offers if I tokenize cards?">Will I receive card-based offers if I tokenize cards?</cmsannotation> Yes, you will continue to receive card-based offers even after you tokenize your card. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/telecom/news/5g-in-india-does-the-aam-aadmi-even-need-it/articleshow/92382529.cms">5G in India – does the aam aadmi even need it?</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/banks/news/sbi-icici-bank-hdfc-bank-and-others-banks-have-increased-fd-interest-rate-checkout-comparison/articleshow/92388718.cms">SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and others hike fixed deposit interest rates – check out the latest FD interest rates</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/news/upi-and-rupay-cards-will-soon-be-accepted-in-france/articleshow/92247190.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">Here’s what card tokenization is and how to tokenize debit and credit cards</a>

Here’s what card tokenization is and how to tokenize debit and credit cards

In mid-March, a scammer in California tried to buy $150 worth of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trying-wingstop-first-time-review-photos-2022-9">Wingstop</a> using my debit card. Aside from being impressed at the sheer size of the order, I was relieved because Citibank, which issued my card, declined the transaction on the spot and alerted me to the fraud. In minutes I was able to shut off my card, heading off any more purchases by the scammers, and order a new card. All's well that ends well.When I went to Buenos Aires in April, I figured I might <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/why-was-my-credit-card-declined">run into a similar situation</a>. Sure, the banks say you don't have to call ahead when you travel anymore, but I assumed I'd still have some purchase flagged as potential fraud, as had happened in past trips abroad. Miraculously, everything went off without a hitch. I don't know how JPMorgan Chase knew that I would spend $200 on Botox in Argentina, but it did. (No, I didn't book my flight on the same card, and whatever, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/botox-injections-fillers-plastic-surgery-gen-z-social-media-filters-2024-5">everybody gets Botox now</a>.)It's great that banks and credit-card companies are getting better at discerning which payments are fraudulent and which are legit. Many people have some horror story about having their credit card stolen or having their own legitimate transactions flagged as suspicious. And it's nice not to have to spend 20 minutes on the phone before a vacation explaining where you're going and when. Credit-card fraud protection is still far from perfect, but there's no denying that the technology is improving. On the flip side, it's also kind of wild to consider just how much financial institutions must know about you to make the right calls.I was curious about how it all works — and, frankly, a little creeped out. So I reached out to some credit-card companies and academics to learn more. Why don't people have to alert their credit-card companies about travel anymore? And, more broadly, just how have banks gotten so good at figuring out what's normal about our spending habits and what isn't?The Federal Trade Commission receives thousands of card-fraud complaints each year. The Nilson Report, which tracks the card industry, says payment-card fraud resulted in $33 billion in losses worldwide in 2022 and $13.6 billion in losses in the US. As such, credit-card issuers and banks are keen to do what they can to spot fraud. They want to keep their customers happy, and, more importantly, they want to stem their losses. In the US, the major credit-card issuers and banks <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/credit-card-lost-stolen-what-to-do">generally have a zero-liability policy</a>, which means that when a customer gets scammed, the organization, not the customer, has to eat the cost.Years ago, whether a transaction went through was based on things like whether a physical card was present, whether you had enough money to make the purchase, and (if the cashier wanted to look) whether your signature on the receipt matched the one on the back of your card. In some cases, the cashier may have even asked for ID or called the bank to verify the funds. We've come a long way from those bad old days by using the same tools that power most innovations: data and computers. Credit-card companies and banks know a lot about us — where we shop, when we spend, and how much we're usually willing to pay for things — and they're getting better and better at turning that knowledge into action. While it's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/generative-ai-exaggeration-openai-nvidia-microsoft-chatgpt-jobs-investors-markets-2024-3">all the rage to talk about newfangled forms of artificial intelligence</a>, fraud detection owes a lot to machine learning, a field within AI that's been around for years. A bunch of data gets dumped into computer systems, and algorithms figure out patterns and relationships. The algorithms create decision trees to predict the likelihood of different outcomes and identify what may be considered normal or fishy. It's not that your credit-card company knows that you, specifically, would blow a bunch of cash on A and not on B — it knows that customers with your profile are in the "likes A" camp and not the "likes B" one."It's looking at what's happening that is very much out of the ordinary for your general behaviors," said Tina Eide, an executive vice president of global fraud risk at American Express. "And when I talk about general behaviors, it is generalized, right? It is not down to the specific purchase or to the specific merchant." Eide added, "The models are evaluating a trillion dollars' worth of transactions a year."The machines know more now than ever. Mike Lemberger, Visa's regional risk officer for North America, said that over the past five years the number of data points people generate with their credit cards has grown tremendously. People are increasingly using cards over cash. And they don't just have a physical card they're pulling out at the store — they've got their card credentials in their Amazon account, Netflix account, iPhone, etc. The more purchases the card issuer can analyze, the more accurate the fraud detection will be."Visa, we don't have consumer information — that's your financial institution that has that — but what we have is this triangulation of all these data points," Lemberger said. "We can create more and better scores, layer on top of that machine learning and AI abilities, and it becomes a much, much more powerful predictor, which we then feed into all of our partners to say, 'Hey guys, if you want to make the best decisions, here's a whole bunch of really good information.'"Visa isn't going to block your card directly, but it'll alert your bank that your purchase looks suspicious or that fraud has been detected at the merchant you're dealing with.This all seemed pretty simple until I talked to Yann-Aël Le Borgne and Gianluca Bontempi, a pair of researchers at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium who <a target="_blank" href="https://fraud-detection-handbook.github.io/fraud-detection-handbook/Foreword.html#authors">work on machine learning and card fraud</a>. They emphasized the vast scale of this fraud-detection technology. Companies and their algorithms are ingesting millions of transactions and creating so many decision trees to categorize certain activities that it can defy human logic, they said. Basically, the computer may be right that your transaction looks funky even if it's made in your home city at a fairly innocuous vendor, or it may be right that the transaction is fine even though it's made in a faraway place — but when humans try to figure out what did or didn't sound the alarm, nobody will really be able to pinpoint why."Machines can consider many more features, and at the end of the day it's not clear if all those features have meaning for humans," Bontempi said. "Humans are used to working with two, three features, at most five features, while machines can work with hundreds of features. So there are really different levels between what a machine can do."There are human-written rules, which are generally interpretable, and there are machine-written rules, which can be a black box. They're more accurate, but they may be harder, if not impossible, for people to reverse engineer. And banks may be using several different algorithms, making this even more complicated. Data scientists are the ultimate decision-makers, but the information they're dealing with is based on highly complex tech. When I explained to experts my somewhat embarrassing wings-versus-wrinkles conundrum and asked what may have triggered one alert and not the other, they offered up different explanations. Eide, from American Express, said that even though I hadn't booked my trip to Argentina with the credit card I used to buy the Botox, something else had probably tipped off the system that I was there. I realized I'd also bought a package of spin classes in Buenos Aires on my phone with the same card. I had also paid for a meal in the city. Lemberger, from Visa, emphasized that it's about all the data and spending patterns and said that given my spending patterns, the Botox likely matched my profile more than the massive delivery order."I hate to say this to you, but at the end of the day, all these data points build personas. Just like in marketing somebody would use personas to market to you, we're using that same technology to protect you," he said. "And the fact is that we use those data points to not just secure you but the whole ecosystem."At some point it occurred to me that the supercomputers that credit-card companies and banks are working with could know more about me than I even know or understand about myself."It's probable that the exact reason why a transaction caused your card to be blocked has no straightforward interpretation," Le Borgne said.I also asked whether there was a big difference in credit-card protections and debit protections and was told not really — maybe banks will be a little more restrictive about credit because they're technically lending you money that's not limited by your actual cash balance. I also asked if companies don't worry about preclearing travel because they don't care as much about losing money to fraud anymore, to which the answer was a hard no."At the end of the day, somebody's got to pay for the fraudulent activity," Lemberger said. Credit-card companies will give you your money back if you're a victim of fraud, but they'll find another place to recoup that money, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/credit-card-late-fees-cap-swipe-mastercard-visa-jpmorgan-rewards-2024-4">just as they always do</a>.Instinctually, I am not a technology-is-awesome person — if the AI really is going to kill us, I feel like we should unplug it. I'm not super freaked out about the privacy stuff, but I also don't love the idea that AmEx and JPMorgan and Citi have me so pegged. But it's cool that companies really are making fraud detection better, especially in a world where fraudsters themselves are constantly getting better. I don't want to be like "Yay, banks!" but maybe here the answer really is a little "Yay, banks!" At least that's the case until the next major data-privacy breach, at which point I will regret everything.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/emily-stewart">Emily Stewart</a> is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.

Banks have finally fixed the single most annoying thing about credit cards

As we purchase more online and swipe cards more often, we are contributing to a cashless economy which is more efficient. But it comes with various risks like data misuse. Financial data is one of the most sought-after information by online criminals and there have been many <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/biggest-data-breaches-of-2019-to-affect-india/articleshow/72465865.cms">data leaks in 2019</a> to show that no information is safe. As per a recent <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/4-lakh-indian-debit-and-credit-cards-are-selling-for-9-apiece-on-the-dark-web/articleshow/74028856.cms">report</a>, over 4 lakh Indian debit and credit cards were available on the <keyword id="1929208" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="dark-web">dark web</keyword> for $9 each. You can read <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/here-is-what-happens-your-credit/debit-card-number-name-and-cvv-end-up-on-the-dark-web/articleshow/74058814.cms?src=hp_tech">here</a> how your financial data reaches the dark web and what happens to it. In this post, we will explain what steps you can take to prevent your debit and <keyword id="6368202" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="credit-card">credit card</keyword> information from reaching the dark web. How is financial data stolen Financial data can be stolen in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/microsoft-dropbox-and-linkedin-are-the-biggest-targets-for-phishing-attacks/articleshow/72492998.cms">phishing attacks</a>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/airtel-data-breach-exposes-personal-data-of-32-crore-subscribers/articleshow/72428075.cms">data breaches</a>, skimming and other <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/biggest-data-breaches-of-2019-to-affect-india/articleshow/72465865.cms">leaks</a>. Phishing attacks Phishing is aimed at collecting usernames, passwords and other personal information of users. It is usually done using an email or a message that contains a link or an attachment. The sender pretends to be a trustworthy entity such as a company or bank. Data breaches Data breaches occur when the user data stored with companies and websites is stolen using phishing, malware, or JS-sniffers. Under attacks like this, user data such as customer name, number, address and payment details are stolen. So, one should be careful about the entities that possess their basic information. Skimming In this, skimmers are attached to ATMs and card machines to steal your card details so they can access your account. They use the obtained details to clone your card and run up charges on your account. How to protect you debit and credit card from getting stolen Here are some tips that will help you to protect your financial information from getting stolen. Check ATM machines for skimmers <div type="image" title="ATM Skimmer" msid="74061252" hostid="261"></div>

 When you are at the at the ATM, you can check for skimmers in the following ways: <ul><li>Check the ATM card reader for tape or glue residue. </li><li>Check if anything is hanging from the ATM. </li><li>Wiggle the card slot for loose-fitting attachments. </li></ul>Monitor your transactions Regularly check your account statements and card reports for suspicious transactions. If you find even a small transaction that wasn’t done by you, immediately inform your bank and get the card blocked. Do not use shady websites If you are getting a deal that you think is too good to be true or a new website is offering you great deals, do not fall for such tricks and purchase items only from known and trustworthy websites. Be careful with emails Phishing attacks are often carried out by sending attachments or links via email. Avoid clicking on suspicious links and attachments and only click on emails from trusted sources. Do not share your card details If anyone calls you claiming that they work for your bank and ask you for your card details, do not provide any information about your bank account or cards. Call up your bank and share the phone number from which you received the call. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/here-is-what-happens-your-credit/debit-card-number-name-and-cvv-end-up-on-the-dark-web/articleshow/74058814.cms?src=hp_tech">Here is what happens when your credit/debit card number, name and CVV end up on the dark web</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/4-lakh-indian-debit-and-credit-cards-are-selling-for-9-apiece-on-the-dark-web/articleshow/74028856.cms">4 lakh Indian debit and credit cards are selling for $9 apiece on the dark web</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/biggest-data-breaches-of-2019-to-affect-india/articleshow/72465865.cms">Biggest data leaks of 2019 that hit Indians</a>

How to stop your debit/credit card information from reaching the dark web

The offers and details on this page may have updated or changed since the time of publication. See our article on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/paid-off-credit-card-debt-solid-plan-2024-6" target="_blank">Business Insider</a> for current information.<ul class="summary-list"><li>At the beginning of the year, I was facing nearly $30,000 in credit-card debt.</li><li>I made a budget to pay it off in 18 months, but a big project let me pay off most of it in just one.</li></ul>When December ticked into January, I knew it was time to face something I had been putting off: my credit-card debt. When I added it up, it was even worse than I'd thought. I owed $29,357, and my monthly payments alone were approaching $1,000.If I were reading about this happening to anyone else, I'd probably think, "How did that happen?" The truth is, it was just too easy. I wasn't dining out regularly, shopping impulsively, or doing anything extravagant. I racked up most of the debt improving my house, which I bought as a foreclosure in need of serious repairs. Another major chunk was from a bucket-list trip to Italy with my sister and cousins for a wedding.I didn't regret either of those things, but I was starting to feel suffocated. I vowed to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/how-to-pay-off-debt-fast">pay off my debt</a> as aggressively as I could.<h2>I realized I was undermining my financial security</h2>I've been freelancing for more than a decade, and I believe there's a lot of job security in being a contractor. If one client goes under, I can find another. Yet at the start of this year, I barely had any work.This compounded my stress about my credit-card debt. A major change in my workflow could make it impossible to keep up with even the minimum payments. That much debt could easily snowball and overwhelm me, flattening my plans for a stable financial future.Over the past five years, I've worked hard to create a stable career — and eventual retirement — as a freelancer. To me, that means being able to pay for my needs and wants comfortably while doing the type of work I love. I save monthly for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/retirement">retirement</a> and budget diligently for quarterly taxes. I felt frustrated with myself when I realized I was leaking money on credit-card interest when it would otherwise help build my security.<h2>I made a budget and planned to pay off the cards in 18 months</h2>My resolve was strong, but I was still overwhelmed by the sheer amount of debt. I thought about a home-equity loan, but I didn't want to change unsecured debt for a loan that put my home on the line.Instead, I put together a budget — something I'd been good about sticking to in the past — and laid out all my household expenses. With my low January income, I would just meet them. I decided to do a no-spend month, where I didn't purchase anything but essentials — not even coffee. I stopped using the cards and canceled any automatic charges and subscriptions linked to them.I planned to stick to my <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-budgeting-apps">budget</a> and direct any extra income toward my debt. I thought it would take me about 18 months, which made me think twice about how much I really needed that trip to Italy or the new floors.<h2>An unexpected project gave me a huge boost</h2>I stuck to that plan for the first few weeks of the year. Then, in February, I had a huge windfall. An occasional client explained they had a massive project that needed to be finished that month. At first, I thought it would be about $5,000 of extra income, and I was thrilled to be able to pay off a chunk of my debt.As the month went on, the project ramped up instead of slowing down, and I worked long hours daily. I felt glued to my computer, but by the end of the month, I had made almost $25,000 more than in a typical month. It all went to my credit cards.<h2>I feel like I have a clean slate and a better understanding of my financial goals</h2>Getting that project felt like a gift — a chance to right the wrong choices I'd made financially. I had $5,000 in credit-card debt left after that, and I'm following my budget to pay that off. That feels like a much more manageable amount, and I'll be able to pay it off this year.Now, I'm determined to use my clean slate to set up a solid financial future, not one built on debt. I'm already planning to increase the amount of money I put in my <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-retirement-plans">retirement plan</a> and tackle my remaining <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-private-student-loans">student loans</a> next year.Like most millennials, I can get distracted by the shiny spend-now, pay-later promise of credit cards. But after feeling overwhelmed by them and being lucky enough to escape, I know that the real goal is a future where I'm financially stable enough to fit major expenses into my cash flow, including the travel and home improvements that almost took me down.

After paying $25,000 of credit-card debt, I'm ready to make the most of my clean slate

<ul><li>A new <keyword id="6360618" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="data-leak">data leak</keyword> shows that 4 lakh Indian debit and credit cards of Indian banking customers are for sale on the <keyword id="1929208" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="dark-web">dark web</keyword>. </li><li>The report by Singapore-based Group IB claims that the cards are being sold for $9 apiece with the overall value of the database estimated to exceed $4.2 million. </li><li>Group IB believes that the details were likely stolen by tracking online transactions, not by skimming details from cards used at ATMs. </li></ul>Another four lakh credit and <keyword id="6356475" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="debit-card">debit card</keyword> details are up for sale on the dark web, and 98% of them belong to customers from Indian banks. A report by Singapore-based security firm <a href="https://www.group-ib.com/media/india-banks-cards/">Group IB</a> claims that the payment details were up for sale on Joker’s Stash — a secretive portal on the dark web for hackers to sell card dumps. “The underground market value of the database is estimated at more than $4.2 million,” said the report stating that each card was being sold for $9 apiece. The 461,976 payment records include exposed card numbers, expiration dates, and CVV codes. Others have additional information like cardholders’ full names, emails, phone numbers and addresses. The data can be used to make fraudulent transactions, especially if the accompanying phone numbers is included. The cybersecurity firm was unable to determine the source of the leak. However, they have passed on the information to India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) so that they can take the necessary steps. The database is named “INDIA-BIG-MIX” and was uploaded on 5 February 2020. The data was likely compromised online According to Group IB, the information found in the database was likely compromised online. That’s what makes it different from the data leak from last year. “In the current case, we are dealing with so-called fullz… with the use of phishing, malware or JS-sniffers,” said Group IB. In October 2019— when the same portal was found to be <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india/news/bank-details-of-1-3-million-indians-is-up-for-sale-on-the-dark-web/articleshow/71829700.cms">selling the debit and credit card data of 1.3 million Indian banking customers</a> — the firm believed that the information was stolen from magnetic stripes on cards. “Early data analysis suggests the card details may have been obtained via skimming devices, installed either on ATMs or point of sale (PoS) systems,” said the Group IB’s earlier report. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india/news/bank-details-of-1-3-million-indians-is-up-for-sale-on-the-dark-web/articleshow/71829700.cms">Bank details of 1.3 million Indians is up for sale on the dark web</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/biggest-data-breaches-of-2019-to-affect-india/articleshow/72465865.cms">Biggest data leaks of 2019 that hit Indians</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/policy/news/rbis-new-cybersecurity-guidelines-are-pushing-indias-1574-urban-cooperative-banks-to-bring-digital-services-up-to-snuff/articleshow/72381380.cms">RBI's new cybersecurity guidelines are pushing India's 1,574 urban cooperative banks to bring digital services up to snuff</a>

4 lakh Indian debit and credit cards are selling for $9 apiece on the dark web

<ul><li>CryptoSend, a startup in <keyword id="6355478" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="australia">Australia</keyword>, has teamed up with global payments and card issuing company <keyword id="6359421" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="visa">VISA</keyword> to create physical crypto <keyword id="6354770" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="debit-cards">debit cards</keyword>.</li><li>The physical debit card will let users spend their earned <keyword id="6357017" type="DEFINITION" weightage="20" keywordseo="cryptocurrency">cryptocurrency</keyword> in nearby shops, bars, and more.</li><li>The development comes amid the Australian government mulling over new laws to regulate the crypto industry.</li><li>VISA’s approval of CryptoSend indirectly hints that the system can be trusted. The former has strict money laundering protocols to curb illegal transactions.</li><li>The supported cryptocurrencies on CryptoSend’s debit card include Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin.</li></ul>While the rest of Asia Pacific is busy trying to regulate cryptocurrencies the best way that they know how, Australia is already on the road to coming up with new use cases even though volatility is still a concern. CryptoSend, a startup created by two students from the University of Technology in Sydney, has<a href="https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/visa-to-issue-first-australian-card-for-spending-bitcoin-20210714-p589i1"> teamed up</a> with global payments and card issuing company VISA. They intend to launch a physical debit card that'll let users spend their earned <a href="https://wazirx.com/signup?invite=2kpah6gr&amp;utm_source=business-insider&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=microsite">cryptocurrency</a> in nearby shops, bars, and more. Instead of converting cryptocurrency to fiat before every spend, the card will directly enable real-time settlement, enabling a direct purchase experience for the user. <div type="ExtQuote" text="We have customers that range from 18-year-old students to 70-year-old grandmothers… [This] further emphasises the growing appetite for people of all ages to use crypto as an everyday currency." auname="Richard Voice, co-founder and COO of CryptoSpend, said in a statement"></div> Australians have not been immune to the hype around cryptocurrencies during the pandemic. According to a report by the investor education app Finder, cited by <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/cryptocurrency-rising-in-australia-but-risk-remains-biggest-deterrent/news-story/1adb60ca30da69fffdd68bc3acf82cc3">The Australian</a>, every one in six Australian owns some sort of cryptocurrency as of June. Cryptocurrencies have been legal in Australia since 2017 and are also subject to taxation. However, as a result of recent developments, the government has floated a new proposal looking for feedback on setting up good market practices of financial instruments, which expose investors to cryptocurrency-backed assets. Even so, unlike its Asia Pacific peers like China and India, the country’s central bank has no plans to release a central bank digital currency (CBDC) for retail customers. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Partnering with VISA is a game-changer" comment="subhead" text="Partnering with VISA is a game-changer">Partnering with VISA is a game-changer</cmsannotation> Payments processing company Novatti, listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, shall issue the card, and New York-licensed custodian BitGo shall take care of the crypto holdings. The supported cryptocurrencies on CryptoSend’s debit card include <a href="https://wazirx.com/signup?invite=2kpah6gr&amp;utm_source=business-insider&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=microsite">Bitcoin</a>, Ether, XRP, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin. The bigger accomplishment for the startup, however, is VISA’s participation. In addition to the vast number of potential users it brings to the table, the payments company has stringent security protocols and anti-money laundering requirements. VISA’s approval of CryptoSend indirectly hints that the system can be trusted, unlike the plethora of scams and alleged startups that try to disrupt an already disrupted industry. Although it's worth noting that VISA has previously issued such cards for crypto exchanges like Binance but they're not available in Australia. "The merchants don't have to change anything. It will be the same as any other VISA transaction to them. But on the backend, the crypto assets are instantly converted into fiat," Cuy Sheffield, head of cryptocurrency at VISA, told <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/cryptocurrency/news/visa-is-partnering-with-over-50-crypto-companies-to-allow-clients-to-spend-and-convert-digital-currencies/articleshow/84203557.cms">Business Insider</a> in an interaction earlier this month. The company also <a href="https://usa.visa.com/visa-everywhere/blog/bdp/2021/07/06/crypto-linked-cards-see-1625612645562.html">revealed</a> that over $1 billion had been spent on crypto-linked VISA cards in the first half of 2021. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Why are crypto debit cards a big deal?" comment="subhead" text="Why are crypto debit cards a big deal?">Why are crypto debit cards a big deal?</cmsannotation> Debit cards have revolutionised the payments industry and, despite being decades old, are a critical part of the global banking infrastructure. The card is a crucial method of cash replacement, further enabling digital transactions smoothly. However, they are usually dependent on a fiat currency like the dollar. CryptoSend aims to change that foundational block by allowing users to access cryptocurrencies using debit cards. Not only is that convenient for enthusiasts, but it’s also a way to have a familiar way to conduct transactions for those who are new to the space. Coinbase has a similar system in place, where users can link debit cards issued by the company to make retail transactions by linking the card to Apple Pay or Google Pay. But, Coinbase’s 56 million users <a href="https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/buying-stocks/articles/coinbase-reaches-56-million-users-should-you-open-an-account/">pale</a> in comparison to Visa’s reach of billions. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Australia has been ahead of the curve when it comes to regulating cryptocurrencies" comment="subhead" text="Australia has been ahead of the curve when it comes to regulating cryptocurrencies">Australia has been ahead of the curve when it comes to regulating cryptocurrencies</cmsannotation> While other countries are still mulling over how to regulate the crypto market, Australia declared crypto exchanges are legal and covered by Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act, 2006 nearly half a decade ago. Since 2017, exchanges have had to register with the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) in order to operate locally. A cryptocurrency asset is treated like a fixed asset — akin to a house — in the country and hence, capital gain taxes are applicable. A few weeks ago, Australia's securities regulator <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/australian-regulator-seeks-feedback-managing-risky-crypto-assets-2021-06-30/">said</a> it would consult stakeholders on proposals to identify appropriate crypto assets and set up good market practices for financial instruments. Considering these assets as a new financial instrument could help the country adopt blockchain as a technology for self-growth. The authorities are considering opening up their financial sandbox to include cryptocurrencies and other blockchain-based projects. According to an October 2018 report by Deloitte, "The benefits of going through the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) sandbox vary.” It states that participation in the sandbox breaks the myth of regulation being a barrier to innovation. “On the contrary, it has shown that regulators can play an active and positive role in encouraging innovation by giving unique business models 'permission to play' in a highly competitive financial services sector," the report explains. The Australian regulator will issue a feedback report and publish information on good practices following consultation. The idea of a Bitcoin-based card is just picking up, and VISA is certain about the future despite the nascent nature of the industry. <a href="https://forum.businessinsider.in/">For a more in-depth discussion, come on over to Business Insider Cryptosphere</a> — a forum where users can deep dive into all things crypto, engage in interesting discussions and stay ahead of the curve. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/cryptocurrency/news/one-of-canadas-largest-bitcoin-mining-farms-sees-a-50-jump-in-production/articleshow/84437300.cms">Canadian crypto mining company is eyeing Bitcoin worth ₹96.6 crore this month after China’s crypto crackdown</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/cryptocurrency/news/wazirx-coindcx-and-coinswitch-kubers-advertising-roll-has-hit-a-roadblock-in-india/articleshow/84432645.cms">WazirX, CoinDCX and CoinSwitch Kuber have been asked to add ‘standardised disclaimers’ to their ads on television</a>

VISA crypto debit cards are coming to Australia amid regulatory uncertainty

It was the perfect hunting ground for a Kremlin operative looking to get his hooks into Peter Thiel, one of the most powerful men in Silicon Valley: an extravagant birthday party with hundreds of guests, held at Schloss Neuwaldegg, a 17th-century palace in the suburbs of Vienna. Flawless June weather, models taking selfies beside statues of Greek gods, a troupe of acrobats, Champagne. Tech executives mingled with politicians and artists before sitting down to dinner in a flower-bedecked banquet hall. The guest of honor was Christian Angermayer, a gregarious German entrepreneur who had forged relationships with politicians across the world. The party, held on June 23, 2018, commemorated his 40th birthday.Thiel was already friendly with Angermayer. Over the next few years he would pour millions into Angermayer-backed ventures as a coinvestor. And despite Thiel's eccentric, far-right politics, his own companies were indispensable to the US national security establishment. He had founded Palantir, an analytics company used by the Pentagon and the CIA. He was on the board at Facebook (now Meta) and had been an early investor in prominent US defense startups including SpaceX and Anduril — access that could give the Kremlin a powerful vantage into US security networks and Silicon Valley. As the US government was coming to depend on private companies for critical top-secret technologies, Thiel was one of the biggest beneficiaries. That fact was likely on the mind of another one of Angermayer's guests, a tall, well-coiffed diplomat named Daniil Bisslinger, who worked in Moscow at the Kremlin's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Bisslinger had previously been an attaché working at the Russian Embassy in Berlin and sometimes served as <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/documents-link-afd-parliamentarian-to-moscow-a-1261509.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vladimir Putin's interpreter</a>.It was Angermayer who introduced Bisslinger to Thiel at the party, Thiel would later tell the FBI. After some small talk, Bisslinger made a pitch to Thiel: Thiel should travel to Russia to attend the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. (Angermayer himself had attended the forum a few years back, in 2012.) If Thiel chose to attend, Bisslinger said, Bisslinger would arrange for him to meet privately with Putin. Angermayer's attorneys denied that he was present for this portion of the conversation; later, Angermayer's spokesperson said he couldn't recall having introduced the two men.<div type="image" title="Daniil Bisslinger" height="682" width="910" msid="105128837" hostid="261"></div>Bisslinger's invitation to Thiel was casual, delivered in the course of a brief cocktail-party conversation. It might not have seemed like much to Angermayer's other party guests — just three well-dressed men, as Thiel recalled in his conversations with the FBI, amid a crowd of hundreds, chatting for a few minutes. One of them happened to be a billionaire; one of them happened to work for the Russian president.But from a counterintelligence perspective, this was a big moment."If these facts are accurate, they would be of potentially significant counterintelligence interest," Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director, told Insider. "Anytime a Russian official is inviting someone to meet with Vladimir Putin, that has potential significance."Thiel demurred. Bisslinger gave Thiel a business card that identified him as an employee of the Kremlin's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Thiel did not follow up. Later, Thiel would tell the FBI that he didn't think Bisslinger was bluffing; he believed Bisslinger could indeed deliver a meeting with Putin. But the conversation at the palace in Vienna was memorable enough for Bisslinger to reach out again to Thiel more than three years later, in January 2022. He approached Thiel's office with the same invitation — he could come to the St. Petersburg conference that summer and meet with Putin. By then, Thiel, like the rest of the world, had seen the signs that Russia was about to invade Ukraine. He wondered if Bisslinger's invitation was some kind of psy-op, a plot to make it appear as though the invasion wasn't going to happen, that everything was normal. Again, he did not respond.What Bisslinger didn't know is that something had changed between the 2018 birthday party and the 2022 follow-up. Thiel had signed up to be a confidential human source — an informant, with the official code name "Philosopher," and an identification number — for the FBI. Thiel reported Bisslinger's two approaches to his bureau handlers, along with the names of two others: a German and a Russian. All three men, Thiel told the FBI, had tried to work their way into his circle in order to push the Kremlin's interests. Thiel's account of Bisslinger's invitations was <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/11/peter-thiel-2024-election-politics-investing-life-views/675946/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first reported</a> by the Atlantic. Insider is first to report that the initial meeting between Thiel and Bisslinger occurred at Angermayer's birthday party, and Thiel's claim that Angermayer himself made the introduction.A few months later, the US intelligence community circulated a secret intelligence memo relaying Bisslinger's claim that he could arrange meetings with Putin. It included Bisslinger's phone number and email, as given on Bisslinger's business card.Last month, Insider <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-fbi-informant-charles-johnson-johnathan-buma-chs-genius-2023-10">exclusively reported</a> that Thiel was an FBI informant. He was recruited by another informant — Charles Johnson — and had regular meetings with Johnson's handler, an FBI special agent named Johnathan Buma. This account of what Thiel told the FBI about Angermayer and Bisslinger, a joint investigation by Insider and Welt, is based on the same three sources who provided that previous account. (These sources are the longtime Thiel associate Johnson plus two additional sources with knowledge of what Thiel reported to the FBI.) Insider and Welt also confirmed with a fourth source the details of the 2018 introduction by Angermayer, the 2018 conversation with Bisslinger, and the 2022 follow-up by Bisslinger.In a letter to Insider, two attorneys representing Angermayer acknowledged that Thiel had indeed met Bisslinger at Angermayer's birthday party. Bisslinger, they wrote, "worked in Berlin in the Russian embassy and was pre-war a regular part of Berlin diplomatic circles.""Even if Mr. Angermayer did introduce Mr. Thiel and Mr. Bisslinger," the lawyers wrote in another letter, "Mr. Angermayer is not—and cannot be—responsible for whatever Mr. Bisslinger and Mr. Thiel may or may not have discussed."Later, a spokesperson for Angermayer wrote that Angermayer is "very confident that he did not make any such introduction," adding, "And, either way, Christian is not privy to anything that Mr. Thiel and Mr. Bisslinger may (or may not) have discussed."Insider and Welt asked Angermayer how he knew Bisslinger, why he invited him to his 40th birthday party, and why (as Thiel recalls) he introduced Bisslinger to Thiel. Neither Angermayer nor his representatives gave a direct response to these questions. "More than 1,200 people were invited to the party and more than 500 attended," one of the representatives wrote. "It was a very broad invite list."Thiel, a lawyer representing Johnathan Buma, and the FBI's national press office all declined to comment. Bisslinger and the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov did not respond to requests for comment. Angermayer declined to respond directly.<div type="image" title="Billionaire entrepreneur venture capitalist Peter Thiel" height="4000" width="5333" msid="105128839" hostid="261"></div>One can understand why Putin might have thought Thiel would be interested in meeting. The two men had a few things in common. Both had cultivated ties to conservative politicians in central Europe. <a href="https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Both favored</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2006/07/15/putins-sovereign-democracy/52ce51c4-fd66-478f-af04-768ac6156f80/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CEO-style government</a> where power is concentrated in the hands of wise decision-makers who surf the fickle currents of democratic whim. And both men worked to make Donald Trump the 45th president — Thiel through his political donations and Putin through a state-backed hack-and-leak operation. The attempt to court fits in with two broader efforts.First, Putin was using Germany, historically the NATO power with the least hostility toward Russia, as an outpost for winning over hearts and minds elsewhere. Putin was in the process of completing a second Nord Stream pipeline that would directly supply Germany with cheap Russian natural gas, bypassing Ukraine. Bisslinger's role in this effort was much more than a socialite who attended diplomatic events. An <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/documents-link-afd-parliamentarian-to-moscow-a-1261509.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">investigation by Der Spiegel</a>, drawing on thousands of Bisslinger's emails, detailed how Bisslinger cultivated pro-Russia sentiment both in public and in private. Some of his greatest successes were members of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party, or AfD. Der Spiegel called those politicians "Putin's pawns."Second, Putin perceived correctly that the same carrot-and-stick techniques he'd used to such political advantage on Russia's oligarchs could be deployed on a global scale to push Russia's interests with Western billionaires. He had some success with Elon Musk, who has <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly spoken</a> about phone calls with the Russian leader. Musk told his biographer about conversations with Russian diplomats that led him to deprive Ukrainian forces of Starlink internet access along the coast of occupied Crimea. That decision, in turn, scuttled a planned <a href="https://apnews.com/article/spacex-ukraine-starlink-russia-air-force-fde93d9a69d7dbd1326022ecfdbc53c2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ukrainian naval attack</a> on Russian forces at Sevastopol.If Putin had succeeded in forging a meaningful relationship with Thiel — and there is no evidence to suggest he succeeded — the biggest intelligence prize for Russia would have been Thiel's influence at Palantir, where he's served as chairman of the board since 2003. The CIA, the NSA, and the FBI have all reportedly used its software. Palantir recently won a $250 million contract to develop artificial intelligence for the Pentagon; another contract, worth as much as $463 million, is for battlefield-ready software to be used by US Special Operations Command. A proposed partnership between Palantir and Britain's National Health Service brings it closer to the NHS-supported UK Biobank, one of the world's largest troves of genetic data; however, a UK Biobank representative said only vetted researchers can get access to their data.But even just a handshake with Thiel could have benefited Putin. "This could be another case of 'Look at me, I'm czar of Russia. I can reach anyone, anywhere,'" said an experienced Washington insider with connections to decision-makers in national security and international finance. "Plus, there's the external optics. A Putin-Thiel meeting would obviously cause an enormous frisson in Western intelligence circles."<div type="image" title="Christian Angermayer" height="1124" width="1499" msid="105128842" hostid="261"></div>Angermayer had long been known as a masterful networker, someone who knew how to fill a room with big names. He's shared a stage with Uma Thurman and rubbed shoulders with Robbie Williams and Queen Latifah. He's repeatedly invested in emerging and even speculative sectors — cryptocurrency, psychedelics, antiaging tech. He's long been an advisor to Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda. "<a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?amazonTrackingID=biauto-64666-20&amp;h=74835b860ad8964f223d2c01372b8630bf6777d2eae2ae0b6ac2c8e66c344312&amp;postID=654d3c812ef354b8a3182edf&amp;postSlug=fbi-peter-thiel-vladimir-putin-russia-christian-angermayer-daniil-bisslinger-2023-11&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FMoney-Men-Startup-Billion-Dollar-ebook%2Fdp%2FB09QT3Y69V" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Money Men</a>" by Dan McCrum, a book about the Wirecard scandal, calls Angermayer "a business wunderkind with a mixed record and a very successful knack for attaching himself to voguey trends." A program for a private forum that Angermayer organized in 2020 on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference promised attendees face time with John Kerry, the heads of several Eastern European and Baltic countries, and the foreign ministers of Belarus and Iran. Richard Grenell, the former US intel chief who was then serving under Trump as US ambassador to Germany, spoke at Angermayer's private forum. A Twitter account run by the State Department posted a picture of his presentation, with Grenell standing in front of the logo of Apeiron Investment Group, Angermayer's Malta-domiciled family office. (Neither Grenell nor spokespeople for Kerry responded to requests for comment.) Thiel was among the shiniest trophies in Angermayer's contact list. The two men had known each other for years. In February 2017, Angermayer invited business partners to a roundtable talk with Thiel in Munich. The invitation referred to Thiel as his "close friend." But Angermayer's personal fortune was far smaller than Thiel's, and he'd never hit a home run anywhere near the scale of PayPal or Facebook. In 2021, Angermayer helped take two companies public on Nasdaq. The first, Sensei Biotherapeutics, was supposed to help with cancer therapies. The second, Atai Life Sciences, intends to make psychedelic drugs, with Angermayer as founder and chairman. Today, both companies are trading for a fraction of their initial value.Angermayer has shown some sympathy for Trump but otherwise expressed his view that he felt "very comfortable in the center." The German investor had shown at least some interest in Russian politics as well. In 2012, one of his companies prepared a trip for business partners and friends to Germany, China, and Russia, where a meeting with Dmitry Medvedev, then Russia's prime minister, was planned, according to a draft program. The trip never wound up happening. (Angermayer "does not know Medvedev, and has never communicated with Medvedev in any way," his spokesperson wrote.) After Trump won the presidential election in November 2016, Angermayer sent an analysis to business partners and friends in which he wrote: "Better relations with Russia and less intervention globally will definitely make the world a more peaceful place." Thiel seems to have felt the same way at the time, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/fashion/peter-thiel-donald-trump-silicon-valley-technology-gawker.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">asking Maureen Dowd</a> of The New York Times if the West would be better off with Russia in its corner, or in China's. "There are these really bad dictators in the Middle East, and we got rid of them and in many cases there's even worse chaos," he said.The host of Angermayer's birthday party and owner of the palace in Vienna was the Austrian investor Alexander Schütz, who joined the supervisory board of Deutsche Bank in 2017 when Chinese company HNA, which had business ties with him, became a major shareholder in the bank. In 2021 he stepped down from the board. His wife, Eva Schütz, is the majority owner of a media outlet called Exxpress. It has sometimes been criticized as being Russia-friendly. In an interview with the Russian ambassador to Austria in July 2022, Exxpress itself used the Kremlin propaganda phrase "special operation" to describe Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Schütz declined to comment about the meeting between Thiel and Bisslinger.Also among the guests at the party on June 23, 2018, was — according to his calendar and to reports — Heinz-Christian Strache. At the time, he was the Austrian vice chancellor and chairman of the right-wing party FPÖ, known for its Russia-friendly views. Yet another invitee was Markus Braun, then the CEO of the German company Wirecard, which collapsed in 2020 — Germany's biggest fraud scandal in years. Jan Marsalek, a former Wirecard board member, is now on Interpol's most-wanted list and believed to be hiding in Russia. British authorities alleged that he had collaborated with five people suspected of being Russian spies. Marsalek was also an acquaintance of Angermayer and took part in the roundtable talks he organized with Grenell and other leaders in Munich in February 2020. The previous year, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/3c561ccf-2e95-46f7-ac43-a8e04db21dfe" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Angermayer received</a> a 13 million euro payout, about $14 million, for arranging for an infusion of $1.1 billion from SoftBank into Wirecard. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing.Angermayer's view of Russia appears to have changed after Putin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. He <a href="https://twitter.com/C_Angermayer/status/1497642431201824772" target="_blank" rel="noopener">encouraged</a> his Twitter followers to "send our love to Ukraine and a big f..k you to Putin" and <a href="https://twitter.com/C_Angermayer/status/1496114513577394192" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called the Russian leader</a> a "sad example" of how COVID-19-related isolation can lead to deteriorating mental health.Caroline Haskins, Katherine Long, and Jack Newsham contributed reporting.Mattathias Schwartz is chief national security correspondent at Insider. He can be reached at schwartz79@protonmail.com.Hans-Martin Tillack is chief reporter on the investigative team of Welt and Welt am Sonntag. He can be reached a hmtillack@protonmail.com

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