Shocking number of Aussie payment cards on dark web

Disturbingly, hundreds of thousands of Aussie card details are being sold on the black market for as little as $1.40. Here’s what you can do to stay safe.

More than 400,000 Australian bank card details have been found on the dark web with some on sale for as little as $1.40.

Research from software provider NordVPN uncovered more than 4.4 million payments cards available for purchase from 140 countries, with Australia the second most affected country only behind the US.

Disturbingly, there was a whopping 1.5 million cards on sale from the US, while 419,000 Aussie cards were also up for grabs on the dark web selling for between $1.40 and $26.

Almost 80 per cent of the Aussie cards for sale were for debit, which generally has a lower level of protection compared to credit, while Australia was assessed as being the second most vulnerable to card fraud only behind Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, for the Aussie card details that were stolen most came from Visa with almost 220,000 for sale, followed by MasterCard with 192,000 affected, and American Express had 9000.

Just some loose change can buy an Aussie’s card details on the dark web. Picture: iStock

Marijus Briedis, NordVPN Chief Technology Officer, said hackers could easily make a lot of money, with a huge growth in card fraud since 2014.

“Even if a card costs only $US10 on average, a hacker can make $40 million by selling a single database, like the one that we analysed,” he said.

He added breaches of databases weren’t just happening because of poor security, but hackers were actually using “brute force” in some instances.

“Brute-forcing is a bit like guessing. Think of a computer trying to guess your password. First, it tries 000000, then 000001, then 000002, and so on until it gets it right,” he noted.

“Being a computer, it can make thousands of guesses a second. After all, criminals don’t target specific individuals or specific cards. It’s all about guessing any viable card details that work to sell.”

Scarily, this method means consumers have no way of preventing themselves from ending up as victims of card fraud, other than throwing them in the bin and not using them.

Visa, American Express and MasterCard all had details leaked. Picture: iStock

Instead, Mr Briedis recommended people review their monthly statement for suspicious activity and respond quickly and seriously to any notice from their bank that their card may have been used in an unauthorised manner.

“Another recommendation is to have a separate bank account for different purposes and only keep small amounts of money on the one your payment cards are connected,” he said.

“Some banks also offer temporary virtual cards you can use if you don’t feel safe while shopping online.”

He also advised people use multi-factor authentication such as a code being texted to your mobile or even a fingerprint.

Originally published as Shocking number of Aussie payment cards on dark web