Part-Time Pundit: So how long til my CC info hits the web?

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March 16, 2006

So how long til my CC info hits the web?

I was in a Washington Post article today in which I basically was quoted calling all the online credit card thiefs n00bs. I'm starting a pool, how long til they DoS me...

John Bambenek, a security incident handler at the Bethesda, Md.-based SANS Internet Storm Center, which monitors hacking trends, agreed.
"The reason there is often a delay is that a lot of the people who actually install a lot of these keylogger programs are not that sophisticated," Bambenek said. "In most cases, they're teenage hackers who flip the information to more organized criminal groups for some quick cash."

The scourge of keylogger programs is pervasive and growing, Bambenek said. He recently conducted an analysis for SANS estimating that nearly 10 million U.S. households own a computer that is infected with some type of keystroke logging program. Although not every PC user whose keystrokes are being logged has experienced financial losses -- perhaps because hackers are busy sifting their illicit logs for rare kinds of data -- Bambenek estimates that organized-crime groups have access to roughly $24 billion in bank assets from accounts associated with the owners of those infected machines.

Then there is this article where the reporter only mentioned my comments about porn sites. Awesome.

John Bambenek, a research programmer for the coordinated science lab at the University of Illinois, said some segments of retail on the Internet are not as trustworthy as others. "Porn is particularly bad," he said. "They'll take your credit card information and sell it to someone else. Since they're a dime a dozen, you have no idea who you're dealing with."

Posted by John Bambenek at March 16, 2006 9:29 PM