Attention, Stolen Credit Card Shoppers

Researchers at Finjan Software have discovered a one-stop online marketplace for buying stolen credit card and other sensitive information that offers volume discounts as well as customer service perks like "product" guarantees, according to a published report.

The so-called SellCVV2 Website, apparently named after the Card Verification Value 2 number on the backs of many major credit cards, appears to be using Google’s Blogspot service, according to Finjan. The big difference between SellCVV2 and other card-swapping sites "is the level of commercialization of the traders involved," Yuval Ben-Itzhak, CTO of Finjan, said in the report.

Bad guys purchasing the stolen account information have a range of purchasing options based on the value of the card – a Gold or corporate card would be more expensive than a standard credit card, for instance. Finjan says pricing goes from $10 per regular Visa or MasterCard, for example, in a 100-card volume purchase, to $38 for a small number of the premium cards.

The site also promises guarantees that the cards will "work," and offers "trial" data as well. "If further proof were needed that there is a very serious problem facing the card acceptance and processing industry, this is it. The level of sophistication shown on the site acts as a clear warning to anyone who thinks card fraud is a containable problem," Ben-Itzhak said.

— Kelly Jackson Higgins, Senior Editor, Dark Reading