Latin America. A recent study found that there are more than 6 million stolen credit cards on the dark web, of which 156,000 belong to Mexicans, Nord VPN reported.
This report also indicated that two out of three stolen cards came with at least some type of private information, such as an address, a cell phone number, an email address or even the Social Security number.
Mexico is the fourth most affected country in the world and the first in South America. The researchers also estimated that the average price of Mexican cards on the dark web is 117.04 Mexican pesos (world average - 121.82 Mexican pesos). Mexican cards are prone to fraud. According to NordVPN's Card Fraud Risk Index, on a scale of 0 to 1, Mexico's card fraud risk index is 0.54.
"In the past, experts linked card fraud to brute force attacks, when a criminal tries to guess the payment card number and CVV to use their victim's card. However, most of the cards we found during our investigation were sold along with the email and home addresses of their victims, which are impossible to brute-force. Therefore, we can conclude that they were stolen using more sophisticated methods, such as phishing and malware."
Impersonation through payment card fraud
By selling the database analyzed in the investigation, cybercriminals could earn more than 321.28 million Mexican pesos in total. If purchased, this credit and debit card data could report criminals far more than they originally paid for it.
16,550 payment cards for sale included the mailing address and nearly 8,734 cards included the mobile numbers of their Mexican holders.
Mexico, the most affected country in South America. Brazil, the second
Brazil was affected by the theft of more than 144,000 cards, making it the second most affected country in South America and the fifth in the world. Chile suffered the theft of more than 13000 cards, Argentina almost 17000 and Peru around 14000.
Malta, Australia and New Zealand at the top of the risk index
Based on their findings, NordVPN researchers have calculated the risks posed by credit card theft and related cyberattacks to residents in 98 countries. Malta, Australia and New Zealand topped the risk index, with Mexico ranked 41st.
At the other end of the spectrum, Russia scored the lowest risk score, with China coming in second-to-last. These results seem to confirm the prevailing assumptions about the location of large-scale hacking operations and the fact that Anglo-European countries are the intended target.
58.1% of stolen cards issued in the U.S.
More than half of the 6 million stolen credit card records analyzed came from the United States, likely due to its high card popularity ratings, sizeable population and strong economy. However, the stolen U.S. cards were relatively priced (119.33 Mexican pesos versus the global average of 121.82 Mexican pesos) in dark web markets; the most valued cards (with an average of 200.80 Mexican pesos) came from Denmark.
Top 10 countries with the highest card theft
How to Protect Yourself from Credit Card Fraud
* Use passwords that are impossible to copy.
* Download the app from your bank.
* Respond to data breaches
* Use anti-malware software
