The Dark Web: How Stolen Credit Cards are Fenced

Credit card data stolen from retailers such as Target, Sally Beauty Supply, P.F. Chang's, and now perhaps Home Depot, are flooding into underground hacker forums where customers' card numbers, names and addresses can be sold for as little as $1 each.

Tuesday, a large batch of credit and debit card information that appears to be from Home Depot went on sale on such an underground marketplace, known as a "carder forum." A Home Depot spokeswoman confirmed that the company had contacted its banks and law enforcement to look into "unusual activity" but did not confirm a breach.

Carder forums "are the Craig's List of the hacker underground," says Neal O'Farrell, an identity theft expert at Credit Sesame and founder of the non-profit Identity Theft Council, based in San Francisco.

"It's not just cards. It's phishing kits, malware, spammer lists," O'Farrell said. "It's a like a shopping mall for cybercrime."

O'Farrell opened an account on one carder forum, rescator.la, where he was able to peruse offers for millions of Target credit cards. The website, registered in Latvia, listed the card information along with ZIP codes and e-mail addresses — information that makes it easier for criminals to use the cards to purchase goods online or withdraw money from bank accounts.

The hacker asked for payment in Bitcoin, a difficult-to-trace digital currency.

Journalist Brian Krebs of KrebsonSecurity.com wrote that he found the newest batch of cards on that site.

When credit information stolen from Target appeared for sale in the forums, individual card numbers fetched up to $120 each, O'Farrell says. Within weeks, as banks started to cancel the cards, the prices dropped to $8 a card, he says. Seven months after Target learned of the breach, they are nearly worthless.

"The most important part of the price is the freshness, before the victim knows they've been breached and when no one is canceling," he says. "The guarantees on the cards dwindle the older they get."

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