Hacked Canadian payment cards cost around $6 on the underground web, half the global average, according to a recent study by NordVPN. The tighter regulation of Canadian financial institutions, which bears the responsibility for the illegal use of lost or stolen cards, would explain why these are cheap.
Cybersecurity firm NordVPN analyzed information about four million credit and debit cards found on the underground web, including 46,000 Canadian cards. Observation: the average price of a Canadian payment card would be $6.30 there, according to this study published on Tuesday.
The unit price fluctuates between $1 and $18. Just over 9,000 cards were sold at $7.50, according to information from NordVPN.
The value of Canadian cards is below the world average, which is more like $12. Tight Canadian regulations would partly explain their lower cost on the black market, says Marijus Briedis, chief technology officer at NordVPN.
When a lost or stolen payment card is used illegally in Canada, the responsibility lies with the banks: “That’s why many Canadian banks have implemented additional security measures to protect their customers. In fact, payment card fraud in Canada has decreased since 2015.”
Over the years, this regulation would have pushed institutions to use tools to detect fraud, such as harder-to-find passwords and authentication based on multiple elements relating to the user, NordVPN believes.
The regulatory aspect is not the only factor to consider in the resale of this information, notes Patrick Mathieu, co-founder of Hackfest. “The price of a card is generally established according to its quality. And that depends on a multitude of factors. Is the card expiration date in two months or two years? Is it a big or small consumer? Is it the card of a company that barely tracks its expenses? »
Patrick Mathieu recalls that the average price, as advanced in the NordVPN study, “is not necessarily the best way to assess the impact that the sale of this information can have on cardholders”.
Information can be sold to dozens or even hundreds of people. ” Therefore, [les fraudeurs] can make a lot of money by selling the same information to several people, even if the price is quite low. And several can use them at the same time,” he says.