"And in addition to drugs, counterfeits and guns, Evolution also sells stolen credit cards, a kind of crime never allowed on the Silk Road."
A sort of natural selection that favors more evil apparently.
A sort of natural selection that favors more evil apparently.
It's actually pretty incredible; I was expecting to see simple "dumps" of CC info and bank login credentials, but it was much more sophisticated. Sellers were offering "packages" that would include bank login information (priced according to account balance), lists of IP addresses that were known to be flagged, SSNs and address information to help with security questions, and guides for how to best use this information.
Definitely seems like it'd be easy for a criminal with a little tech know-how to make a full time job of buying and exploiting this info. Based on the prices I saw, it would only take one successful fraudulent transaction out of many attempts for it to be profitable.
Perhaps there aren't many buyers out there, or there are just too many stolen CCs that the market is swamped by them.
OTOH, maybe the payoffs for CC fraud are actually lower than you might expect... could the banks be getting better at blocking cards sooner?
There are far FAR too many CC numbers available out there and when you consider the work needed to find a viable one, not to mention the legal issues resulting from this...it's pretty clear why they are so "cheap".
It's pretty comparable to the current stolen iPhone market(assuming iCloud locked), as they are basically a paperweight in that configuration, which makes them a "traders" commodity of sorts. Much like this, I've seen CC "packages" used as a sort of commodity, where the partners aren't as much interested in using the CCs, as they are merely selling them off later.
It seems like the common route is to to purchase expensive items and resell them, but you take a big hit on the value. Plus if you do this too much, more and more things are very trackable -- any computer/phone/tablet is covered with unique ids that can be tracked, so too can craigslist ads -- should you ever get big enough to be worth the hassle. Am I wrong?
Credit cards they make their own fake stores by the hundreds and pay themselves small amounts, or they do instore fraud which is extremely risky. In the UK they simply card Tesco and then sell the groceries half price. Can also fraud bitcoins now as services exist to buy small amounts. None of this is easy, profits aren't huge it's all very small time unless you're the guy getting and selling the data to the legions of petty hustlers worldwide.
The interesting part is that it further enables LEOs to further justify a drug war that is increasingly seen as unjustified by tying it to other law enforcement activities.