Research into a dark web database containing six million global card details has revealed that only the United States and India experienced more payment data theft than the UK.
A study conducted by NordVPN across six underground marketplaces found that the UK has a total of 164,143 payment card details listed. This figure nearly matches the combined totals of the next two largest European victims, France (97,032) and Italy (78,676).
Concerningly, about two-thirds of the UK’s card data (63%) was found to be sold alongside a wealth of additional personal information, including home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and National Insurance numbers.
UK card details averaged a cost of just £4.61, which is 18% lower than the global average of £5.61. This cost is also significantly lower than that of Danish payment data, which is priced at £9.23, making Denmark the most expensive in the study.
The average price of stolen payment cards has decreased by more than 25% since the end of 2021, a trend that reflects the rise and effectiveness of low-cost online scams and fraud, such as phishing and malware.
Adrianus Warmenhoven, a cybersecurity expert at NordVPN, commented, “Historically, experts linked payment card fraud to brute-force attacks, where criminals attempt to guess a payment card number and security code. However, most of the cards discovered were sold together with the email and home addresses of their victims, which are not susceptible to brute-force methods. This suggests that they were stolen through more advanced techniques, including phishing and malware.”