E-Retailer Credit Card Info More Valuable Than Ever

As a merchant you have certainly lived by the laws of supply and demand. You might have so much demand for the products that you have that you sell them online. If you operate an ecommerce site you are of course not alone and millions of your fellow merchants do the same. Are you PCI compliant? We hope that you are because you have something that cybercriminals want. What is that?

Credit card information.

More Electronic Payments, More Information

Think about it, to buy something online you need to have some form of payment and the most common one used is a credit or debit card. With more consumers doing business on e-commerce platforms more merchants have access to that credit card information and they also have access to the CVV code that comes with it. 

With fewer cards being used in brick-and-mortar stores it gives criminals fewer opportunities to steal the information. It is only logical then that they would move to the cyber realm then, where the physical safeguards built into the card like the EMV chip will not be able to protect a consumer. 

Bypassing EMV Safeguards

This migration along with the safeguards like the EMV chip are making credit card information stolen online more lucrative as reported by cyber security expert Brian Krebs. Criminals will then take that information and create a cloned card which will allow them to make purchases with it. The problem is that the supply of cards available for sale on the black market have been outstripped by demand.

The Black Market And Data Breaches

Part of the problem with this is the black market itself, as when a card is sold it is removed from the listing. This allows credit card companies to track the number of cards that are stolen much easier and it also allows them to do it in near real-time. 

It seems like every day or every week another company announces that it has had a data breach or has been hacked. Given that this is where most of the stolen credit card information comes from this would seem to be the best way to avoid credit card information from being stolen. The EMV chip has taken a large bite out of credit card fraud but it has just shifted criminals to the cyber realm.

PCI Compliance More Important Than Ever

If your business is connected to the Internet you are vulnerable. If you run an ecommerce site you have placed a bullseye on yourself. Credit card information is stored with your business and cyber criminals want that. They want it badly. Stolen cards like this can go for over $20 a piece and that is just the information. Thieves want what you have.

So how can you stop this? The best way is to be PCI compliant. Not only that, maintain PCI compliance all throughout the year, not just when your yearly check is done. Make sure that your employees understand this. If you need help with this give JLE Business Consultants a call. We want everyone to be PCI compliant and if that can be done we can all take a bite out of credit card fraud. It is not just large companies that are being targeted, it could be yours just as easily as any other one.