[ISN] What is your stolen data worth?

[InfoSec News]

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9939862-7.html

By Elinor Mills
News Blog
News.com
May 8, 2008

You think your personal information is priceless. But everything has a 
price, even your stolen bank account information.

McAfee Avert Labs has discovered a price list that criminals use to buy 
and sell credit card numbers, bank account log-ins, and other consumer 
data that have been filched from unsuspecting Web surfers.

"Last Friday morning in France, my investigations lead me to visit a 
site proposing top-quality data for a higher price than usual," writes 
Francois Paget of McAfee. "But when we look at this data we understand 
that as everywhere, you have to pay for quality."

For example, a Washington Mutual Bank account in the U.S. with an 
available balance of $14,400 is priced at 600 euros ($924), while a 
Citibank UK account with an available balance of 10,044 pounds is priced 
at 850 euros ($1,310).

There's even a guarantee that if the buyer is unable to log into the 
account within 24 hours, maybe because the owner of the data canceled 
the account, the buyer can get a replacement stolen account to use.

Criminals can even buy skimmers, fake face-plates for ATM machines that 
steal credit card data when the card is swiped, and so-called "dump 
tracks" used to create fake credit cards, the McAfee blog entry says.

This follows on news earlier this week from Web security company Finjan 
of the discovery of a server containing stolen consumer and business 
data. Finjan said it found a server controlled by hackers that had more 
than 1.4 gigabytes of data--more than 5,000 log files--stolen from 
infected PCs. The stolen data included consumer and business e-mails, as 
well as health care patient data and bank customer data from 
individuals, financial institutions, law enforcement agencies, and other 
companies around the world.