Authorities have prevented around €40 million in fraud losses thanks to a three-month long operation targeting dark web carding forums, claims crime agency Europol.
Europol coordinated the Carding Action 2020 operation, which was led by law enforcement agencies from Italy and Hungary and supported by the UK and threat intelligence firm Group-IB.
Group-IB provided 90,000 pieces of recently compromised payment data gathered from unique non-public sources, such as botnet and JS-sniffer infrastructure, as well as underground card shops and marketplaces.
All of the pieces included full card data — cards compromised via phishing websites, from end devices infected with banking Trojans, as well as by the means of hijacked e-commerce sites and the use of JS-sniffers.
Europol then facilitated the coordination and information exchange between law enforcement from Italy, Hungary, the UK and card schemes. Bank were informed, took action and prevented, estimates Europol, around €40 million.
Edvardas Šileris, head, Europol European Cybercrime Centre, says: "With more than €40 million in losses prevented, Carding Action 2020 is a great example of how sharing information between private industries and law enforcement authorities is a key in combating the rising trend of e-skimming and preventing criminals from profiting on the back of EU citizens."