Saturday, March 11, 2006

Another credit card snatch

This is another big card snatch

This is beginning to look like a pattern. Looks like the phishing tactic is no longer quite as effective as it was in the past. I am also starting to wonder about the earlier Boston Globe incident, might be an attempt by an insider to cover up something.

This particular tactic has a major downside, the credit card companies have existing schemes in place to detect this type of thing very quickly. The history of each card that is used fraudulently is examined and clusters of fraud detected. A dishonest employee in a restaurant or shop is quickly identified.

The big change here is the existence of dumps markets where the stolen cards can be sold on. There was little point stealling 200,000 cards at a time in the past, there was no way to dispose of them before the cards were blocked. The dumps markets like shaddowcrew allow the hacker to quickly sell on the cards.

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