oppn parties Indian Credit and Debit Card Data Up For Sale On The Darkweb

News Snippets

  • Supreme Court questions the continuing relevance of two-child norms. The Court observed that falling fertility rates have weakened the population-control rationale behind laws disqualifying people with more than two children from contesting local body elections. It referred the issue to a larger Bench for consideration
  • Supreme Court declines to shift Tirupati laddu case outside Andhra Pradesh. The Court rejected a plea seeking transfer of the trial, despite arguments that political statements by Andhra Pradesh's Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister could affect the fairness of proceedings
  • Supreme Court transfers Azam Khan's fresh ED bail plea to Allahabad High Court. The apex court declined to consider the Samajwadi Party leader's bail request in a fresh Enforcement Directorate case and directed that it be listed before a division Bench of the High Court on November 16
  • Two killed in Delhi building collapse; contractor booked. Two bodies were recovered after a building collapsed in Chawri Bazaar. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said the contractor had been booked and the concerned junior and assistant engineers suspended
  • Uttar Pradesh voter rolls show a 2.4-crore discrepancy. A difference of approximately 2.4 crore names has been reported between the state's panchayat and rural Assembly voter lists. The Election Commission has ordered the two sets of rolls to be matched
  • Gujarat announces 3% dearness allowance hike. The state government announced a three-percentage-point increase in dearness allowance for government employees and pensioners ahead of Diwali
  • Sensex and Nifty post their strongest single-day gains in months. The Sensex surged 2,008.61 points, or 2.60%, to close at 79,310.01, while the Nifty 50 climbed 576 points, or 2.40%, to 24,536.60. Financial and automobile stocks led the rally, supported by falling crude prices and renewed foreign investor buying
  • Maaya Rajeshwaran reaches WTA-level quarter-final. The 17-year-old Indian defeated Poland's Weronika Falkowska 6-4, 6-3, becoming the first Indian woman since Sania Mirza in 2012 to reach a quarter-final at a WTA Tour-level singles event
  • Tanvi Patri reaches Youth Olympics badminton final. The 15-year-old defeated Japan's Yuzuno Watanabe in the semi-final, assuring India of a medal and becoming the first Indian badminton player to reach the girls' singles final at the Youth Olympics
  • India beat Pakistan 3-2 in SAFF Championship. India defeated Pakistan in a closely contested match, having led 3-0 before conceding two late goals. The victory was reported as a significant result for India's second-string side
  • India beat Japan 4-1 to win a record sixth Asian Champions Trophy. India recovered from an early deficit to defeat Japan in the final at Mohali, extending its record as the tournament's most successful men's team
  • The Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre and the Election Commission on a petition challenging Section 16 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, which grants the CEC and Election Commissioners protection from legal proceedings for acts performed in their official duties. The petition argues that such blanket immunity could leave citizens without an effective remedy for alleged wrongdoing by the Commission
  • The Supreme Court told voters whose names were deleted from Delhi's draft electoral rolls not to be apprehensive about seeking re-enrolment through Form 6, after the Election Commission assured it that such applicants would not be prosecuted merely because their names had appeared in earlier rolls
  • Congress leader Rahul Gandhi opened the party's campaign for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections with an Insaaf rally in Sangrur, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's home district, accusing the AAP government of failing to control drugs, gangster violence and corruption. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge outlined six commitments, including a drug-free Punjab, protection of farmers, employment for young people and action against corruption
  • Rahul Gandhi accused the AAP government of running Punjab through a remote control from Delhi and questioned Bhagwant Mann's ability to tackle drug abuse, making personal allegations about the Chief Minister's conduct during their time together in Parliament
Stock markets on fire due to US results, Sensex gains 2008 points to reach its highest level in 8 months
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Indian Credit and Debit Card Data Up For Sale On The Darkweb

By Linus Garg

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.

In an alarming piece of news, it has been reported that skimmed data of more than 13 lakh debit and credit cards of Indian nationals is up for sale in the Darkweb marketplace called Joker's Stash. This data can be purchased and used to carry out online transactions. The data thieves skim the details of the users in various ways, the most common being when they use ATMs or POS machines.

It is most distressing that the sellers of the data are claiming to have both track-1 and track-2 data and both together can be easily used to make online transactions. The data dump has been detected by Group-IB, a Singapore-based firm that specializes in detection and prevention of cyber attacks.

That such a huge amount of data has been stolen and put up for sale clearly shows that data thieves and skimmers are operating on a large scale and an organized manner in India. This makes Indian card holders, whose number is rising exponentially as the government pushes for a cashless economy, vulnerable. Anyone of them can find their bank accounts drained or can face huge credit card bills.

The worst thing is that since the actual credit or debit card has not been stolen, the cardholder cannot lodge a complaint either with the issuer or with the police unless a fraudulent transaction is first made on the card. But that one transaction needed to lodge a complaint might drain out the savings of a lifetime. Hence, the cardholder actually does not have a remedy against such data theft without losing a huge amount of money to these fraudsters.

If the government wants a cashless economy, it has to address this issue. If people start losing money to data theft, they will stop making debit or credit cards and start relying on cash as before. It will burden the banking sector and create problems for businesses that depend exclusively on online transactions. Data thieves have become very smart and can clone mobile sim cards to get the OTP sent by issuers as the second or third step verification. Hence, additional, and hopefully foolproof, security is needed to ensure the safety of payment cards.

image courtesy:gbhackers.com