The credit card company last June launched an international campaign, called Operation Stop IT, in a bid to curb online identify theft. It roped in security software vendor NameProtect as a partner, and started 24x7 Internet monitoring to identify online credit-card trading rings, phishing scams and other forms of payment fraud that targeted MasterCard's financial partners and cardholders.
Phishing scams trick customers into revealing their personal information such as account details and credit card numbers, by using fraudulent e-mail and Web sites that appear to originate from well-known brands.
According to MasterCard, it receives real-time reports about fraudulent sites. It turns those reports over to law enforcement agencies and asks the relevant Internet service providers to take the sites offline.
"With strong collaborative efforts in place, we are able to take the quick, decisive action that has been integral to our success," Tim Morris, MasterCard's Asia-Pacific vice-president and regional head, security and risk management, said in a statement.
Most of the phishing attacks on the company were hosted by sites located in the United States (47 percent), and other nations from Europe, South Asia and the Middle East. As at April this year, Korea accounted for the largest number of phishing sites in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by China, Taiwan, Japan and Australia.
The number of sites touting the sale of credit card numbers have also fallen from the time MasterCard first launched its initiative. 139 such sites were identified in June 2004 compared to only 10 as of May 4 this year.
Operation Stop IT also detected (up to January 7) 133 potential phishing sites that exploited the December 26 tsunami tragedy.
CNETAsia contributed to this report.
