Blackmarket credit card dealings increase

The Australian reports that cyber criminals are buying and selling bank account details and credit card info on the blackmarket.

Following on from last week’s news that Australians have been the victim of $1 billion in fraud over the past twelve months comes reports that cyber criminals are buying and selling bank account details and credit card info on the blackmarket.

According to news in The Australian, Detective Superintendent Brian Hay, operations commander of the Queensland Police fraud group, says the blackmarket web involves secure private networks on which criminals barter online…
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In a recent joint operation with the US Secret Service, Queensland Police traced money trails leading to about 81 offenders in 21 countries, Det Supt Hay said.
“It’s not easy to find them on the internet. You know where they are but that doesn’t mean you know where they are operating from,” he said. “You can bounce communications through numerous proxy servers all over the world and make use of zombie computers. It’s always better to follow the money, because eventually someone has to pick up the money.”

Det Supt Hay warns the public to be more wary of email scams – particularly as some con artists have established some very professional looking fronts to cover their dealings.

“These frauds are very professional now. It used to be misspelled stuff, but now they look really good and it’s really hard sometimes for people to even understand that they’ve been scammed,” he said.
“When people call us to say they’ve got a letter saying they’ve inherited money or won a lottery, they actually want to believe it.
“It can be extraordinarily difficult to stop them sending money, particularly if they have sent some already. You can get enormous abuse, as they think you are keeping them from collecting their winnings.”

Source: The Australian