Dec 03, 2016 09:15 AM EST By Jane Reed, UniversityHerald Reporter

Newcastle University recently revealed a research that claims hacking can take seconds. If criminal hackers are going to access a bank account, they may only need to break into the account in as little as six seconds.

New Castle University researchers have found that gaining access to a bank account is easy. All hackers need is a working laptop, a fast internet connection and a few guesswork here and there.

And when they are able to succeed in getting those three right, hackers can work out the card number, the security code and even the expiry date of any Visa credit and debit card. Newcastle University experts describe the process "frighteningly easy,' cites ITV News.

No matter how many security measures a company may have, using Distributed Guessing Attack can break through all of it. Especially if the company has online payments. Fraudulent online attacks are more frequent now than before. Recently, a Tesco cyber attack cost its customers 2.5 million pounds.

The research from the Newcastle University team indicated that using the process of elimination, hackers are able to get into the account. They believe that using Distributed Guessing Attack is the method the hackers used at Tesco.

According to Mohammed Ali, a PhD student at Newcastle, he explains that hackers will be able to get a card number as a start. But they can still go through an account without a card number as they will use variations of number combinations and send them out to websites to validate them.

According to ITV, Visa informed the news company that the research done by Newcastle did not consider the multiple layers of fraud prevention that the company has. But the Newcastle team did not find any multiple, invalid attempts which refuted Visa's claim.

Customers are now being warned to be more careful this year. Especially with the holiday season coming closer, online payments to purchase Christmas gifts can become an open market target for hackers online.

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