Credit cards with security chips have helped cut down on Dark Web sales of stolen card data, but the problem persists, especially in the U.S., says Cybersixgill.
Stolen credit card data is always a hot item for sale on the Dark Web, particularly if the package includes not just the card number but the expiration date and CVV code. To crack down on fraud, card vendors have long since turned away from stripe-only cards to those with embedded security chips that not only use encryption to secure transactions but are more difficult to clone. A recent report from cyber intelligence provider Cybersixgill looks at the current state of credit card fraud on the Dark Web.
Facts and figures of credit cards on the Dark Web
For its “Underground Financial Fraud H1 2022 report,” Cybersixgill found that more than 4.5 million stolen payment cards were up for sale on the Dark Web during the first half of 2022. Though this number is a significant drop of 68% from the more than 14 million such cards discovered during the last half of 2021, this still represents a substantial amount of fraud.
Almost half (45%) of the cards for sale on underground markets were issued in the United States. One likely reason is because the U.S. is home to more than 1 billion credit cards. An American consumer owns four credit cards on average, compared with citizens in the European Union who own one or two cards, according to…
