They find a database with information on Argentine credit cards on the dark web: what was leaked

One of the most widespread types of robbery -because it is simple, silent and considered low risk- is the one that involves the Credit cards in its digital format. A recent investigation found that in the dark web a base circulates with more than 6 million stolen plastics, of which, 17 thousand belong to Argentines.

Besides, two out of three cards (62%) came packaged with at least some form of private information, such as an address, phone number, email address, or even a social security number, according to NordVPN, a cybersecurity firm.

An important part included a piece of information that, in the field of cybercriminals, is equivalent to cash: the verification number (or CVV) and the expiration date of the cards.

“However, this research that has now come to light is just the tip of the iceberg. The information being sold along with these cards makes them much more dangerous,” says Adrianus Warmenhoven, NordVPN’s cybersecurity advisor.

The exact total is 16,792 Argentine cards, a figure that makes it the 17th most affected country worldwide. The researchers estimated that the average price of these cards on the dark web is 544 pesosthree times less than the world average, which reaches 1,560 pesos.

For this reason alone, in a market that is growing exponentially, Argentina has a low attack coefficient (just 0.3%) based on NordVPN’s Card Fraud Risk Index.

On further analysis, it was revealed that 3,000 of those cards they included the address of their Argentine owners, 2,000 had the telephone number, 1,500 the email addresses and some 70, the date of birth of their owners.

“As most of the cards found during the investigation were sold along with the email addresses and home addresses of their victims, something impossible to achieve with brute force techniques. Therefore, we can conclude that they were stolen using more sophisticated methods, such as phishing and malware,” says Warmenhoven.

The problem behind this global breach, which exposes data with such precision, as well as your addresses and other personal information, can lead to identity theft.

Once the attacker has obtained the victim’s name, ID, and email address, they can even abuse legal methods to obtain more personal information and borrow money that was never applied for and borrow money in their name.

Nearly 3 million (58.1%) of the stolen credit cards that were analyzed came from the United States. However, it ranks fifth in the risk index ranking, after Malta, Australia, New Zealand and Slovenia. Argentina was ranked 25th.

While Russia had the lowest risk score, and China ranked third from bottom. These results seem to confirm the prevailing hypotheses about the localization of large-scale hacking operations and the intentional selection of Anglo-European countries as targets.

Credit cards: how to avoid data theft

Although the information often comes from e-commerce sites that were compromised by attackers, a problem that escapes anyone affected, NordVPN specialists offer tips to avoid a greater evil.