Welcome to the fourth and final part in our series on credit card fraud originating in Russia. After covering the basics of what carding is, why so much of it is perpetrated by Russian speakers, then digging deeper into how carders operate, in this part we’ll explore ways to protect yourself and your business from this pervasive financial threat. Click here to download the full report: "Inside Russian Carding" (PDF)

This is part three in our four-part series on credit card fraud, specifically focusing on the Russian carding landscape. In part one, we gave an overview of carding as an attack type and drilled into some key terms from the Carder’s Dictionary. In part two, we looked more closely at the motivations behind Russia being a hotbed of carding activity.

Until recently, Netflix wasn’t too concerned about its members sharing their accounts with friends and family. In a 2016 statement, Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO said “password sharing is something you have to learn to live with, because there’s so much legitimate password sharing, like you share with your spouse, with your kids… so there’s no bright line, and we’re doing fine as it is.”

In part one of this four-part series on card cracking fraud, we covered the basics of what carding is, how carders use bots to power their attacks, and defined the most important terms and phrases within the carding vocabulary in our Carder’s Dictionary. Click here if you missed it or need a recap. In part two, we’ll be talking more specifically about the carding landscape in Russia and on Russian-speaking forums and online communities.

Carding fraud is a financially devastating attack made more damaging by bot-based automation that allows it to run at scale. Russian cybercriminals are especially prolific in the carding space. The Netacea threat research team recently conducted an in-depth investigation into this notorious carding fraud ecosystem.

Bots are ubiquitous across the web. If your business has an online presence, it’s being targeted by automated attacks. So, it’s unsurprising to us at Netacea that in the Gartner Hype Cycle for Application Security 2023, bot management is classed as an early mainstream technology – less than two years from reaching full maturity. The nature and purpose of bot attacks depends on many factors including industry, seasonality, and even the functionality of the target.

AdLoad malware is still infecting Mac systems years after its first appearance in 2017. AdLoad, a package bundler, has been observed delivering a wide range of payloads throughout its existence. During AT&T Alien Labs’ investigation of its most recent payload, it was discovered that the most common component dropped by AdLoad during the past year has been a proxy application turning MacOS AdLoad victims into a giant, residential proxy botnet.

Businesses are realizing the value of bot management tools as part of their application security strategy, with the control set expected to mature towards mainstream adoption in less than two years. This is according to the latest Hype Cycle™ for Application Security by Gartner®, released this month.