Forget Credit Cards, Scammers Now Want Your VoIP Accounts?
from the worth-more-money dept
Last month, we pointed out that the market for stolen credit card data was so saturated that prices were falling. Of course, that just inspired scammers to go looking for other types of data that was a bit harder to find: VoIP accounts. According to the BBC, scammers selling VoIP account info are now able to get higher prices than those selling credit card data. Of course, it's not at all clear how widespread this really is. The info seems to be coming from a company trying to sell a solution to deal with this -- which already makes it somewhat suspect. Also, you have to wonder how valuable VoIP account data really can be compared to credit card numbers which have much wider applicability. Either way, it will be interesting to see how the market deals with the "glut" of credit card data out there, and where else data scammers turn.
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by Anonymous Coward on May 15th, 2008 @ 7:07pm
I suppose you could use VOIP lines to run up 900 number fees and such....
But then again, maybe not.
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by Matt D on May 15th, 2008 @ 8:31pm
or you could sell the minutes you hacked for 1/4th what they are worth and make millions like Pena did here.
America's Most Wanted
http://www.amw.com/Fugitives/brief.cfm?id=49218
of course this was on a much larger scale.
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VoIP account scam protection by Bob A on May 17th, 2008 @ 8:34am
Here is a stop-loss fix. If you have an ordinary residential VoIP telephone home account like mine then get your account provider to lower your monthly credit limit right down really low but not too near your own usage. Then his billing system is protecting you. Fraudulent use will bust the limit and trigger an alert. Make sure he agrees not raise your limit later just because you are a good customer.
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by Slick Rick on May 17th, 2008 @ 9:37am
or...you could use these voip accounts to collect credit card numbers.
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