Software Can Assist In Credit Card Cases; Fighting Identity Theft; Wares can trace stolen cards' patterns of use, often leading to insiders.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)

Byline: DOUG TSURUOKA

In popular lore, a distant computer hacker toils away, finally cracking the code to get into your credit card or bank account.

Such crimes do occur, but people in the tech security field say insiders are a far bigger threat to your financial data. Insiders include everyone from executives at your bank to the clerk who takes your credit cards at a hotel.

A 2005 survey by Computer Security Institute/FBI found that 56% of businesses reported some security breach by employees at some time.

But credit card companies are cracking down, says Mitch Gross, chief executive of Mobius Management Systems. Software that scans stolen credit card numbers to pinpoint "commonalities" are among today's weapons, he says.

Mobius and a few others make this software. Financial institutions use it to trace patterns with stolen card numbers, which can lead to arrests.

One credit card processor, a Mobius customer Gross wouldn't identify, scans a terabyte of credit card information a week to pinpoint these patterns. That's a lot. All the books in the Library of Congress, if digitized and stored as plain text, would add up to about 20 terabytes.