What is Carding?
Carding is a term for any activity related to the processing of stolen credit card information. Stealing the information is only the beginning, followed by a chain in which the data is checked, traded and monetized in various ways. Most credit card holders are not at risk of financial damage as they are insured for this. Nevertheless, credit card theft can have other nasty consequences, such as invasion of privacy, inconvenience and damage to reputation, such as experienced by a Briton who lost everything thanks to stolen credit card data and had to go through life as a pedophile. You can also check some details of Card verification value at CVV shop.
Those who do have to deal with the enormous financial damage are the credit card companies and companies where the information was stolen. They have to issue new cards, monitor accounts for fraud, warn affected individuals and run the risk of lawsuits. In the case of TJX, the security incident cost the company $ 256 million.
The stolen data is usually traded on “carding forums”, online forums where credit card thieves and other criminals exchange stolen data, as well as provide tips on how to cash out and test the cards. A very infamous gang was the Shadowcrew, whose website was rolled up by the Secret Service in 2004. The gang traded 1.5 million credit card details on its website and caused $ 4 million in damage as a result. In total, 4,000 people were members of shadowcrew.com. Recent figures show that carding is popular. Last year, the largest carding forums had nearly 20,000 members.
Solution to carding Approch?
Tackling carding gangs turns out to be a major problem in practice, especially because the carders are located all over the world. The Netherlands, Russia, Great Britain, Canada, Bulgaria, Belarus, Poland, Sweden and the Ukraine were involved in the roll-up of the Shadowcrew organization.
That the “enemy” knows what he is doing is evident from the case of Max Ray Butler, also known as the Iceman. He rented hotel rooms through false identities and then used a powerful antenna to intercept wireless network traffic. Companies that deal with this data must therefore do more to adhere to standards, something where there is still a lot of profit to be made. Furthermore, the legislation that requires companies to report security incidents is vital to the investigation of carding gangs. If the legislation were not in place, the judiciary would never hear anything.
There should also be stricter penalties. Hackers and identity thieves now receive low sentences because they are young and not violent crimes. Recently, a proposal has been presented that will tackle hackers involved in credit card theft harder. The report also calls for other countries to criminalize identity theft and for more cooperation to take place. However, it is not just the government that must take action, the authors say that also applies to the private sector, which must do more to protect its systems.