ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — An FISexecutive told a group of credit union card managers meeting atCard Services for Credit Unions annual conference that denial of service attacks areoften launched as ruses to enable wire fraud.

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Anthony Jabbour, executive vice president with FIS, told thegroup at his session last week that his experience working withcredit unions had revealed that fraudsters would often launchfraudulent wire and other electronic transactions at the time acredit union or bank was distracted by a denial of service attackto strengthen the chances that the fraud would not be caught intime to prevent it.

Right at the point when the credit union's IT and other staffare overwhelmed with the attack, the questionable ACH transactioncomes in and is sometimes approved without sufficient checks,Jabbour told the meeting and added that FIS had been working onsome tools financial institutions could use to counter thetactic.

In some circumstances, he said the firm has urged financialinstitutions to stop approving other electronic transactions untilthe denial of service attack has passed.

The annual CSCU conference wrapped up on Sunday.

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