Mark's Notebook

Phishing Feeds Internet Black Markets

Washington Post

By Brian Krebs

Thousands of consumers are taken in each month by phishing, a rapidly growing form of fraud that blends old-fashioned confidence scams with innovations in technological trickery. The crooks often are members of criminal networks that traffic in stolen data, perpetuating a crime that can haunt victims for years after it was committed.

The scammers make a few small credit card charges or take little bites from the bank account. Then they stop, giving the account holder a false sense of security. In reality, their data is being moved into online black markets. There, it is sold to criminal gangs based in places such as Russia, Ukraine or West Africa. The gangs profit by using the data to open new credit lines for buying high-priced items that they sell for cash.

Another trick that harkens back to the dawn of the World Wide Web is starting to see new life: fake online storefronts that harvest credit card information. In these scams, thieves build Web sites hawking everything from sporting goods to contact lenses at bargain-basement prices, advertising the wares with large doses of spam. The Web sites look authentic thanks to pictures and descriptions of goods lifted from real online stores.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59347-2004Nov18.html

Articles

Last updated Tuesday 13 May 2008