By Dan Ilett
Monday, October 10 2005 11:28 AM
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215,39276459,00.htm

Credit card giant Visa is to spend US$200 million on what it calls "anti-fraud measures", as criminal activity online continues to rise.

John Coghlan, Visa CEO, has also called for tougher laws to combat credit card crime and protect customers.

At a financial services conference in the United States last week, he said: "Together, we actually have the intent, the capabilities and the resources to harden our environment even further and secure the trust of consumers and businesses."

Coghlan said he wanted tougher penalties for those who commit fraud and better data protection laws for U.S. consumers. He added that a standard for disclosing data breaches to consumers was also required.

Data from the Anti-Phishing Working Group shows the total number of attacks around the world peaked in May at almost 15,000, and fell to 14,135 in July. However, the use of spyware has risen--in April, 77 attacks contained password stealing programs, a figure which rose to 174 in July.

Earlier this year, 40 million card accounts were reported exposed to potential fraud as the result of a data breach. Twenty-two million of those were Visa cards.

Dan Ilett of Silicon.com reported from London.