The Growing Trend of Dark Web Stolen Cards Being Used in Online Gaming: What You Need to Know

Online gaming has grown significantly in recent years, with millions of gamers making purchases for in-game content and currencies around the world. However, alongside this expansion has come a growing trend of stolen cards being used to make fraudulent purchases in the gaming industry.

A recent article by Global Security Magazine highlights the threats to the booming gaming industry due to fraudulent activities such as stolen and fake cards used to make in-game purchases. “Perhaps the biggest type of gaming fraud at present stems from criminals that purchase bin lists on the dark web.”

Context:

A large amount of personal data leaked in breaches ends up for sale on the Dark Web. Criminals buy bin lists of stolen cards on the dark web so they can take over multiple accounts, use the accounts’ saved credit cards or create new ones and build them up, and sell those accounts.

Why aren’t gaming companies blocking fraudulent payments?

They are, within some limits, and without keeping pace with the fraud attempts.

“Each time a gaming company approves a purchase using a stolen card, they are hit with a chargeback fee to cover the cost of the purchase. If there are too many chargebacks, these gaming publishers also get hit with fines from payment networks – so it’s a double whammy.” (Global Security Magazine).

When companies try to add extra layers of fraud protection to in-game purchases, they experience an increase in false positives - declined legit transactions– which ultimately frustrates honest players.

Is your credit card on the Dark Web?

The Dark Web is a part of the internet that is not indexed by regular search engines and can only be accessed using specialized software. Checking to see whether your data is there takes time, knowledge and effort.

With Bitdefender Digital Identity Protection, you can instantly find out if your data leaked in a recent (or old) breach, what type of information was exposed, how risky this is for you, and whether any of it is on the Dark Web.

Bitdefender Digital Identity Protection scans millions of websites and monitors the underground networks to check if your information - email addresses, bank account numbers, identity information, and medical records leaked.

You can’t remove data from Dark Web, but at least know what info is exposed and take alternative protection steps.

As a preventive measure, you can use Digital Identity Protection to see your digital footprint at a glance, check your breach history, map risk, and all your leaked information: passwords, physical address, and credit card details, and follow suggestions to improve your online accounts' protection.