All Your Cards Are Belong To Us: Understanding Online Carding Forums

TL;DR

This paper provides the first empirical analysis of active online carding forums, examining the types of stolen financial data traded, pricing, seller behavior, and reputation over a three-month period.

Contribution

It offers novel empirical insights into active carding forums, focusing on seller dynamics, product types, and pricing, which were previously undocumented.

Findings

Identified prevalent types of stolen financial data

Analyzed pricing patterns across different products

Examined seller reputation and specialization

Abstract

Underground online forums are platforms that enable trades of illicit services and stolen goods. Carding forums, in particular, are known for being focused on trading financial information. However, little evidence exists about the sellers that are present on carding forums, the precise types of products they advertise, and the prices buyers pay. Existing literature mainly focuses on the organisation and structure of the forums. Furthermore, studies on carding forums are usually based on literature review, expert interviews, or data from forums that have already been shut down. This paper provides first-of-its-kind empirical evidence on active forums where stolen financial data is traded. We monitored 5 out of 25 discovered forums, collected posts from the forums over a three-month period, and analysed them quantitatively and qualitatively. We focused our analyses on products, prices, seller prolificacy, seller specialisation, and seller reputation.