As Banks Embrace Biometric Tracking of Customers, Cybertheft Explodes in Mexico

Criminal organizations in Mexico have branched out into a lucrative new market and revenue stream: big data. They have developed innovative practices to obtain sensitive user information by lifting data from the databases of government agencies such as Condusef, Consar and Buró de Crédito. They call bank customers and spoof on the caller ID screen the phone number of the bank they claim to represent. To gain the target’s trust, they give the credit card security code to the target and ask if it matches what they see on the back of their card. And it goes from there. Now, they’re about to be gifted an invaluable cache of data: the biometric identifiers of Mexican bank customers.