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British Hackers Using Stolen American Credit Cards

by Tim Stevens on August 31, 2008 at 04:12 PM

British Hackers Using Stolen American Credit Cards
If you've heard the news about the millions of credit cards stolen from supermarket chains over the past year or so, you've probably started to trust your little slabs of plastic a little less than you did before. You're liable to be even more wary now, as word is being spread that British hackers are planning a mass assault on U.S. credit card accounts using numbers snagged from hacked security systems.

The BBC reports that the thieves are planning to take the numbers stolen from American security lapses and attach them to fake credit cards. They'll then hit stores with self-checkout lanes (where they're less likely to be noticed) and "cash out" -- suck all the funds out of the accounts they possibly can. Hopefully, if your card was one of the ones intercepted by the much publicized security leaks, it's already been canceled and you've been issued a new number, and if so, you have nothing to worry about. But, if your card was snagged and neither your bank nor you were made aware, you might want to keep an eye out for a very large U.K. withdrawal on your statements! [Source: BBC News]

Tags: credit cards, CreditCards, hack, security

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