only behind the United States, from where 1.5 million cards were stolen. They were being sold at a price between $1.40 and $26. An analysis of the Aussie cards revealed that 80 per cent of them were debit, which usually have a lower level of protection in comparison to credit. A majority of them came from Visa, with almost 220,000 for sale, followed by MasterCard and American Express, of which 192,000 and 9000 were affected, respectively.
Since 2014, there has been a massive growth in card fraud, particularly as a result of digital innovation and contactless payment systems, and according to NordVP’s Chief Technology Officer, Marijus Briedis, hackers could easily make a lot of money using the stolen details. “Even if a card costs only $US10 on average, a hacker can make $40 million by selling a single database, like the one that we analysed,” he said.
While poor security and customer negligence contribute to breaches of databases, Briedis claims that they were also a result of what has been termed as “brute force”. “Brute-forcing is a bit like guessing. Think of a computer trying to guess your password. First, it tries 000000, then 000001, then 000002, and so on until it gets it right,” he noted. He pointed out that computers can be used to make thousands of guesses a second and the fact that criminals do not target specific individuals or cards make it easier to commit card fraud. “It’s all about guessing any viable card details that work to sell.”
According to the NordVP CTO, such methods mean that there is no of preventing such crimes except by throwing your card in the bin and not using them. Therefore, Briedis recommended that consumers review their monthly statements and immediately respond to any suspicious activity.
“Another recommendation is to have a separate bank account for different purposes and only keep small amounts of money on the one your payment cards are connected,” he said. “Some banks also offer temporary virtual cards you can use if you don’t feel safe while shopping online.”
