Carding and data leakage rise sharply in the Middle East in the wake of Covid-19

Help AG’s security analysts saw a 500 per cent jump in risk alerts for carding from January to June 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, the cyber security company reveals in a new report.

Carding refers to the trafficking of credit cards, bank accounts, and other personal information online.

The massive five-time increase in carding alerts was observed through scans of public sources including information sharing platforms and deep web sources with data compiled by botnets and underground markets. Stolen details included recovery date, BIN code, card number, card expiry, source, card brand, card type, issuing bank, and country of the issuer. The top impacted sectors include aviation, logistics, and retail, the report adds.

Security analysts at the cybersecurity company also reported a 183 per cent jump in threat alerts related to data exposure during the initial months of Covid-19 pandemic. Data leakage refers to the intentional (malicious intent) or unintentional (human error) exposure of confidential documents, corporate emails, and documents with sensitive metadata on official channels of an organization and the dark web for subsequent unauthorized use and exploitation for malicious purposes.

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The most impacted sectors include healthcare, government, aviation, logistics, retail, and energy and utilities.

There was also a nearly 50 per cent increase in hacktivism risk alerts following analysis of monitored hacker groups’ advertisements on social networks (hacktivist profiles and groups), media (local, sectorial, and syndicalist), petition and signature platforms, information sharing platforms and manifestos (pastes). The top impacted sectors include healthcare, government, aviation, logistics, retail, and energy and utilities.

“These high rated threats are an unfortunate reality of the Covid-19 era, hence knowing and guarding against your enemy is now more important than ever before,” said Stephan Berner, chief executive officer at Help AG.

“Our report details the various risks organizations must be aware of as well as all aspects of digital risk protection covering proactive identification, validation, response, and remediation. The risk management cycle is never ending but remains critical for business continuity,” he added.