Internet security company Symantec claims that Internet fraudsters are donating money to charities as a way to check the validity of stolen credit cards prior to resale. Unfortunately, Symantec doesn't have any figures to indicate how much ill-gotten money has been donated to charities this way. Credit card numbers can be sold online for between $1 and $6 each and those that come with a verification code, billing address, and confirmed available balance can bring up to $300.
Javier Santoyo, a manager at Symantec Security Response, said that Symantec learned of this trend by monitoring IRC channels specially set up to trade stolen credit card and identity information. "The advantage of using a charity is it's not a regular purchase, so it may not come up as a flag for the credit card companies. It's normally just a token amount, anywhere from a penny to $10. Normally, it's just to verify that the credit card company doesn't have the card on its cancel list."
News source: InformationWeek
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