Dear Loyal FraudWatch Followers,

As 2015 comes to a close, I want to personally thank all of our clients and social media and blog followers, but above all, our staff. This has been a huge year for FraudWatch International, with our continued client and staff growth throughout the year, there have certainly been growing pains, but I want to thank all our staff for continuing to make our company great through this growth and constant change – it really is the people that make the company!

In terms of phishing this year, we have seen the criminals continue to hit the targets they get the best results from, as well as testing new targets to see where they can get the best return on investment. Phishing is big business for the criminals, and I am sure they are making more than FraudWatch International.

As expected, this year we have seen a huge increase in fake Mobile Apps targeting both clients and non-clients. This is a real security concern moving into 2016, with Smartphones becoming the norm, and an increase in the introduction and use of mobile payments using these devices. 2016 will be the year of the mobile hack – through any means the criminals can: fake mobile apps, mobile malware and phishing.

An interesting development by the criminals this year was a twist on Ransomware – hackers holding banks to ransom to not release information already stolen through data security breaches. I can only imagine this will become the norm in 2016, with hackers targeting not only financial Institutions, but any and all large companies they believe they can get a ransom payment from. If you missed this development in the Middle East, you can read about it on our blog post here: Hackers Hold UAE Bank to Ransom

If you haven’t been following our blog, this was launched early 2015, and we have had a tremendous response to our informative articles.

Stay tuned to FraudWatch International for 2016 – another big year to come with new product and service releases, and a huge increase in our sales and client services teams as we seek to provide more value to our clients, and to all our followers reading and sharing our blog posts.

Stay safe this holiday season, and as we at FraudWatch International prepare for a bigger 2016, I hope you each are preparing for a big year of productive, personal and professional growth.

Kind Regards,

Trent Youl

FraudWatch International