Personal Data For Sale OnlineApril 2009: Online security company Symantec has published a report about personal data for sale online. It seems that the trade in personal information - used in credit card frauds and for identity theft - is growing apace. The Symantec Global Internet Security Threat Report for 2008 details an amazing array of online black markets. The most commonly traded information is credit card and bank account information, with email accounts being the third most popular. This trend of buying and selling email account information means that ISPs are constantly targeted by hackers. In total, the report claims to have located around 55,000 phishing websites worldwide. Bearing in mind the pressure the United States puts on other nations to clean up their act with regards to financial crimes and banking, it is not encouraging to see that 43% of all phishing websites are located in the USA! Much more worrying that all this is that many credit card numbers are sold with PIN numbers, expiry dates and other security information. In fact, it seems that many people buy and sell these details in batches of between 1,000 and 5,000. Truly terrifying! A more thorough look at this report can be found on EurActiv.com here . Published in November 2008 is the Symantec Report On The Underground Economy . Follow these links to go back to:
|