From the profits point of view hacking involves a substantial lost of revenue, for example the voluntarily shutting down of the site, due to the lost of valued customers and consequently missing of market share.

Companies have to react in a consistent way and the only solution possible seems to be an extensive overhaul of the site using different software or a full upgrade to the latest version of the security programs used. The impact of the hacking is considerable. Hackers can break into servers through Web applications and steal customer credit card information, or worse. Hackers stealing your customers’ credit card information is bad enough, but it is not the worst. Clever hackers could also take control of your Web site or servers and use them to sell illegal merchandise or mount attacks on other sites.

In the worlds of hacking the most well-know techniques are the “cross-site scripting”, that allows the collection of consumer’s data when they do an order through a website ignoring the hacker attack in progress.
This procedure is a little part of credit card defraud that beginning with this step of collecting data and finish with the physical cloned card.

Another techniques widely used is SQL injection hacking, in this case the perpetrator goes to a merchant site and inputs special character sequences in the User Name and Password fields. A vulnerable SQL-based application on the server interprets them as commands rather than simple data input. One character string, for example, tells the software to accept as valid all user names and passwords entered from that point on.

Nowadays companies have integrated departments specialized to scan every possible enemy deriving from hacking attack, obviously these engrave on the company assets and sometimes the personal employed are directly recruit from the hacking environments.
With the continuous technology improvement could companies better safeguard their private information and protect their customers???

In this article the journalist underlines that the fears for chance of encountering fraud in the virtual world are common among consumers. He shows different protection systems that every consumer can use whenever he/she wants to buy online.

“The use of credit cards on the Web is growing strongly” – explains Enrico Albertelli, director of marketing and ecommerce of CartaSi -. “That’s why we offer different levels of security. Each company has created strategies ad hoc. CartaSi for example, has introduced a classical system of data protection with password. It is 3DSecure – specifies Albertelli – and it is based on a program that gives the possibility of combining a code to the credit card number. The password is requested to authorize any online payment and replaces the signature that we have to put on the receipt, when we shop traditionally”.

In addition to this system, which involved more than one million customers, there are other tools such as SMS alerts and the X-pay. With the first, you have the opportunity to be alerted via text messages on your phone whenever you shop with the credit card. The second is instead a virtual POS which gives an added value in terms of security and offers the 3DSecure program and the control of CV2 (three-digit code listed on the credit card). It ensures security filters based on an analysis of the risk level of each single transaction.

Nowadays consumers can feel more protected in their online purchases thanks to the growing technology that is changing the way we use credit card.