Hackers are guessing your credit card details - and there's nothing you can
do about it

Date:
Wed, 01 Dec 2021 18:07:50 +0000

Description:
Instead of breaking into databases, smart hackers simply brute force their
way to your card details, researchers say.

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Cybersecurity researchers have revealed hackers have discovered a way to
find card numbers without breaking into a database, and theres also a booming underground black market for them.

Researchers at popular VPN service provider, NordVPN analyzed statistical
data that was collated by independent researchers from dark web markets and learnt that most of the card numbers sold on the dark web are brute forced.

The attackers are able to pull this off because the digits on most cards follow a fixed pattern, and can be deduced. For instance, the first couple of digits indicate the financial service provider, while the sixteenth is a checksum, and so on. Furthermore, the CVV is made up of three digits, which also helps with the guesswork. TechRadar needs you!

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Clever hackers can significantly cut down how many numbers they need to guess and check to find your payment card number. In fact, researchers at Newcastle University estimate that an attack like this could take as few as six
seconds, note the researchers, adding that an average hacked cards data costs less than $10. Numbers game

Crunching the available data, NordVPN says that of the 4,481,379 stolen
cards, the maximum (1,561,739) belonged to US citizens. By comparison, only 134,607 cards for sale on the dark web belonged to UK residents.

Also, the researchers discovered that debit cards were more common than
credit cards , which is particularly worrisome since NordVPN says that debit cards dont have the same level of protections as credit cards. Furthermore, Visa cards were the most common, followed by Mastercard , and American
Express .

There is little that users can do to protect themselves from this threat
short of abstaining from card use entirely, note the researchers, suggesting that users should keep an eye out for suspicious entries in their statements.

Shield yourself online with these best identity theft protection services



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/hackers-are-guessing-your-credit-card-details-a nd-theres-nothing-you-can-do-about-it/


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