A Web site selling stolen credit card data in bulk and offering guarantees and volume discounts to large-scale fraudsters has been uncovered by experts at online security firm Finjan.
The site - SellCVV2 - appears to use Google's Web 2.0-based Blogspot service, to offer fraudsters large volumes of stolen credit card data, says Finjan.
Prices vary depending on the country of issue and the type of card required - such as a low limit classic Visa or MasterCard, or a more valuable gold, platinum, or corporate card.
"Prices typically range from $38 per set of card data for premium card accounts in small volumes, going down to $10 for classic card data in volumes of 100 or more," says Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer, Finjan. "Customers are also being offered trial set of data, as well as a guarantee on account details that do not work."
Ben-Itzhak says the site is typical of a number of portals exchanging fraudulent data online. He says the guarantees and volume discounts being offered at SellCVV2 demonstrate the "commercialisation" of card fraud.
"If further proof were needed that there is a very serious problem facing the card acceptance and processing industry, this is it," Ben-Itzhak. "The level of sophistication shown on the site, acts as a clear warning to anyone who thinks card fraud is a containable problem."
Last December, the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said it would investigate claims that financial data - including private account numbers, PINs and security codes - of tens of thousands of UK customers is available for sale on the Internet.
The data protection watchdog launched an investigation following a report by UK newspaper The Times which uncovered more than 100 Web sites trafficking British bank details. Times reporters managed to download the banking information of 32 people for free and also found a fraudster offering to sell 30,000 UK credit card numbers for less than £1 each.
Meanwhile last October members of a high-tech gang were indicted in New York on multi-million dollar fraud charges related to global trafficking in stolen credit card numbers.
The District Attorney's office alleged that the group is responsible for over $4 million worth of identified credit card fraud and trafficked in well over 95,000 stolen credit card numbers.