For many years and until quite recently, credit card data stolen from online merchants has been worth far less in the cybercrime underground than cards pilfered from hacked brick-and-mortar stores. But new data suggests that over the past year, the economics of supply-and-demand have helped to double the average price fetched by card-not-present data, meaning cybercrooks now have far more incentive than ever to target e-commerce stores.
Traditionally, the average price for card data nabbed from online retailers — referred to in the underground as “CVVs” — has ranged somewhere between $2 and $8 per account. CVVs are are almost exclusively purchased by criminals looking to make unauthorized purchases at online stores, a form of thievery known as “card not present” fraud.