Fergie's Tech Blog

Stolen Credit Card Data Goes for Cheap on Cyber-Black Market

Brian Prince writes on eWeek:

The black market economy of the cyber-world is always busy, especially in an age of massive data breaches like the ones that occurred at Heartland Payment Systems and Hannaford Brothers.

According to research from Kaspersky Lab posted Aug. 17, U.S. credit cards are not worth as much as you might think. While analyzing malware, Kaspersky Lab virus analyst Dmitry Bestuzhev came across a Website with pricing information for the credit cards swiped by cyber-crooks. The highest prices belonged to German credit cards, which sold for $6 (USD) a piece. U.S. Visa cards sold for $2.

"It's certainly difficult to say how many sites like this there are now," Bestuzhev said. "I believe it's not very many because the bad guys don't need to largely market their business. Their customers know them already and if there is a new one, it is passed along by others. It's a kind of club where cyber-criminals 'know each other' in terms of online life."

They also provide customer service—there was technical support available in German and English.

posted by Fergie @ 8/20/2009 04:02:00 PM