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Many thieves stole credentials from networks of hijacked home computers - known as botnets - or used them as proxies to make the theft look like it was coming from a legitimate source.

"For some of these botnets their sole purpose is to act as a gateway to help fraudsters," he said.

ISPs, merchants and other firms were using ways to pierce a proxy and find out who was really in charge of it, said Mr Faulkner.