As the recession hits harder and more people struggle to make ends meet, the last thing anyone would want is to be hit by credit card fraud.

But as more people struggle to hold on tight to their cash, a number of others are trying just as hard to take it away.

CIFAS, the UK’s fraud prevention service, said that identity theft alone costs the UK economy approximately over £2.4 billion a year.

The US outfit, Fortify Software, predicts that one in three UK adult consumers will fall victim of credit card fraud compared to one in four last year- that’s an increase of 33 per cent in just 12 months.

The firm has therefore forecasted a pretty gloomy outlook for 2009 as it could have a knock-on affect to other industries, i.e the online businesses.

Online shoppers to “shop safely”

Due to the current downturn of the UK economy, more fraudsters are turning to new ways of scamming their way into making money.

As buying online becomes a cheaper and more convenient way of shopping in this century’s busy and hectic lifestyle, and with fewer Brits protecting their personal details online, more fraudsters are being drawn in to credit card fraud.

However, with the growing number of Brits open to internet access, it could be unlikely that it may happen to you…so you would think.

A recent survey found that a large number of UK consumers have admitted that they or someone they know has been a victim to online credit card fraud.

Research by the payment technology firm, CyberSource found that a third of UK consumers have been hit or know someone who has been hit by the scam.

As a result, 41 per cent of British consumers admitted that they would not make purchases online due to concerns regarding security.

Two-thirds of the 1000 consumers surveyed said their details were protected via MasterCard SecureCode or Verified by Visa and as a result, still shop online regardless of the fraud.

Simon Stokes, CyberSource managing director said: "The challenge to the industry is educating consumers to shop safely, to minimise their exposure to fraud.

As more people gain access to the internet and realise the convenience, value, and safety of shopping online, I believe we'll see a higher percentage trying and staying with this form of purchase."

Credit card fraud: A thing of the past?

For those who avoid making online purchases, or are extra cautious when buying online, you may need not fear as credit card fraud could become a thing of the past thanks to a new package by a security software firm.

AVG has upgraded its packages and will now be offering customers protection against identity theft.

The firms Identity Protection (IDP) is specifically designed to prevent thieves from obtaining passwords, bank account details, credit card numbers etc.

AVG's Paul Burke said: "As good as we are at getting notifications of threats – and with 80 million users we get a new threat about every four seconds – having behavioural technology means we can step in earlier.

One of the major concerns about behavioural is that you get false positives – but this software can 'phone home' to check any borderline suspicious executable program files against our database.

The other thing we liked is that the behavioural software is pretty good at isolating and removing the malware before it causes a problem. It's got a good success rate.”