What is Carding? how it is Done? and its Prevention -2023

Welcome flocks. In this post, we cover what is carding and how it is done? along with carding prevention. This article provides you with basic knowledge of carding, its prevention, how to stay safe and preventive measures if your credit card is involved. we aim at providing details for both consumers and site owners who are in trouble because of carders. Check out the best laptops for cybersecurity.

Note: This article is for educating people against carding and scammers. It does not state any information that harms others.

Table of Contents

• What is Carding
• How carding is done? – is carding really possible
• Ways of stealing cards and other details.
  • 1. Through physically
  • 2. Fraud or compomised sites.
  • 3. Data breaches
  • 4. social engineering or Phishing, Fake calls.
  • 5. Bruteforce or Random Guess.
  • 7. Malicious Apps
  • 8. Spyware and malware
• Does carding channels on telegram and WhatsApp are real(legit)?
• What are carding websites and carding forums?
• Is Carding or carded products safe?
• Punishment for Carding.
• Measures to prevent carding
  • For Consumers
  • For E-commerce site onwers
    • what to do when your card is used for carding?
• FAQ

What is Carding

Carding or Card Hacking is a term which describes stealing of credit card, bank account, and other personal information. And using that information to buy products, gift cards,s, and other stuff online.

In other words, carding is a form of credit card fraud in which a stolen credit card is used to make payments. Credit cards are stolen in data breaches or through social engineering or physically. In short, Carding is a method of using a stolen credit card to buy gift cards or products online.

How carding is done? – is carding really possible

Yes. carding is possible but it’s illegal to do carding, and it is considered a crime.

In earlier days popular bank cards, use to store all the information on a magnetic stripe, and most of it was not encrypted in any way, including the account number, name of the issuing bank, and data on the parameters of the available credit limit. The pin code of the card was also stored on the same strip, with which the cardholder could log in to banking services and cash out funds. To steal funds from such a card you only need to steal data from a magnetic strip.

But now credit and debit cards are more secured and also flaws in online payment have been reduced. which in turn, had made it harder for carders. But still, there are some flaws, and users’ side can be exploited easily. Most common ways to get financial and victim’s details data from data breaches or by using social engineering.

Carding starts with a hacker getting direct access to user data, store’s or websites’ credit card processing system which contains payment information of the user. Using those information Hacker Obtains a list of credit or debit cards that were used for recent purchases. They can also use scanners to copy the codes from the magnetic strips then, breaking the encrypted data.

Hackers can also get credit card information by accessing the account holders’ other personal information such as bank accounts, their devices, etc. This is done using social engineering.

carder then validates each card in small online stores by simply paying for products. He tries various cc, CVC, and other validating factors to find the correct one.

The hacker himself not uses to buy since he may get caught. Hence he sells it to a third party for lower prices on dark web markets. The third party is a called carder who, then uses it to purchase gift cards or other products from online stores such as Amazon, Walmart, eBay, etc. they usually target smaller stores since their security is less. It can also be used for cryptocurrency since it provides anonymity.

You Might be thinking that how do transactions take place successfully without the OTP. This can be achieved by bypassing OTP or by social engineering. we cover those in detail below.

Ways of stealing cards and other details.

1. Through physically

Physical credit hacking is a targeted attack that focuses on individuals rather than groups. This could be through ATM Card skimming, comprising card swipers, carding machines,s or through stealing users’ cards physically. The contribution of these attacks is less but, prevention of some of these is very hard.

For example, you cannot know if the ATM is compromised or not. The device you used to swipe the card is legit or not. you can prevent direct stealing of cards. because you knew it is stolen.

2. Fraud or compomised sites.

Fraud sites are those site which looks like a legit site but contains malicious code and used for stealing details or for other fraud activities. This includes sites that copy companies like Amazon, Walmart, etc, and make a small change in URL.

For example legit site: www.amazon.com/category/electronics.

fake site: www.amazon.90%discount.com/category/electonics.

fake site: www.amazon.offersonlyforyou/category/electrnoics.

The Above Fake Sites work similar to amazon, you can choose the product, provide details and pay for it. The only difference is that you won’t receive a product and also your payment details will be stored. This type of site is shared on WhatsApp stating that you can get a 90% offer. These are the kind of messages that gets forwarded from user to user.

Compromised sites are different. They are legit. The legit site could be hacked to place a malicious code that collects the user’s data. and this cannot be prevented easily by users but can be stopped by site owners by implementing security policies and monitoring sites for malicious activities

3. Data breaches

Data Breaches are the one of biggest cyber attacks that result in the theft of data from companies. these breaches contain data of more than a million users’ account information, credentials, etc. Data breaches have the biggest contribution to carding. some breaches just contain user information while some contain user credentials along with credit card information. These are then sold for carders on dark web marketplaces. The only way to prevent these is to use a limit-based credit card or virtual credit card.

4. social engineering or Phishing, Fake calls.

Social engineering is a technique that manipulates users to give important information. In simpler, it is a method of exploiting users’ flaws to perform the required hack. Phishing is a technique that is used to get the password and other required info by creating a fake copy of a legit site.

Consider this example. Carder or Scammer calls you “citing that they are calling from the bank, and tell you that your credit card is blocked or hacked. you should immediately provide the last four-digit number and OTP to prevent it.” if you insist then still won’t let it go easily. somehow they manipulate and steal the required information.

5. Bruteforce or Random Guess.

Bruteforce is a technique that uses a special program that keeps trying all the password combinations until it finds the bright one. use most advanced GPU weak password can easily be cracked. Hence always use a combination of letters, symbols, and characters for password win against these kinds of attacks.

Random Guess as the name suggests it is guessing of password or trying a common password. The success rate depends upon the amount of information the attacker knows about the victim. ie, Date of Bith, Mobile no, first and last time, interests, etc that are used for passwords. the preventive measure for this kind of attack is to not include personal info in passwords.

7. Malicious Apps

You may have heard multiple times that google removed some malicious apps. Malicious apps are those which tracks user, install spyware, execute scripts and steal user information. These kinds of apps are mainly found in the beauty and tools category, and these are known only after they steal heavy data from large users. More than half of apps downloaded outside tend to perform malicious activity.

Malicious apps include those which require credit card verification or info for no use.

8. Spyware and malware

Malware is malicious code that is used to exploit a system. spyware is a type of malware that is used to spy on users. Malware includes a keylogger- that records every stroke of the keyboard, payload- which is used to perform various hacking attacks. Malware can be inserted to know websites through websites, or applications that you download from internet nulled apps or through the public wifi.

By using malware attacker can make a purchase or transfer funds directly from the user’s device.

Does carding channels on telegram and WhatsApp are real(legit)?

Telegram is Hub of Scammers and carding channels since these scammers think they can be completely anonymous. they create fake numbers, identities, and accounts but use the real bank account for transactions. First Know this for carding the carder should have insane skills in hacking. Carding cannot be achieved barely with tools and also the success rates are low. For every transaction, OTP is required. The persons you find on telegram are not capable of bypassing OTP. To be more accurate, they don’t even know how carding is done. they can be caught easily by tracing their bank accounts. Telegram carding or carding telegram are the names used to refer to carding in telegram.

Think for a Minute why would someone risk themselves to provide you products at the lowest prices. when they can sell those in masses for the shop without providing bank accounts.

Earlier there were facebook carding groups which are now been removed by Facebook. if you still see you can report it to Facebook. These fake carders are also on Instagram and WhatsApp you can find many with huge paid flowers or bot followers. you can search as carding WhatsApp group in google or carding on Instagram you will find many.

Due to the recent WhatsApp policy, many are starting to use Telegram. So these kinds of frauds are rising on Telegram. Here are some of the examples of these fake carders and channels like conquer_carder,beast_carder, dark web, carding area, all telegram channels that are related to carding are fake. Don’t fall for their follower’s count, usually, those are bots or fake followers.

Recently 3 people from India running channels named Dark Web Carding, Trusted and Safest Carding, and Eyecare Hub were arrested for scamming more than 100k in name of carding. So my suggestion would be, you stay away from such things. Don’t lose your money. And if you were successful in buying from them, you will be held for charges since the billing address will be yours. since the case, won’t be filed by small people since they can chargeback. but these would be companies that file a complaint.

What are carding websites and carding forums?

Carding Forum or carding website is a Forum or website that is used by carders for exchanging, buying, and validating stolen credit cards. These forums are used to filter the best and working cards. In simple words, it’s a website that mostly exists on the dark web that is used for selling, buying, and testing hacked information. These websites or forum contains hundreds of carders.

When a large number of credit cards and their card are hacked, The user normally blocks those cards. so filter out those cards and find useful information about them. The hacker shares them with a carding Forum or carding sites, where other online thieves or scammers check and obtain additional information by pishing or manipulating victims. Then the collected information is given back to the hacker, based on some returns. Transactions are carried out through cryptocurrencies because of privacy focus.

Is Carding or carded products safe?

No. Carding is considered illegal and punishable. Most of the times carders are tracked and published by cybercrime. However for consumers also carding is not safe. The address of the consumer is the associated product. Hence forget about buying carded products. Else you may have to face court charges, to some extent may be taken to prison.

Punishment for Carding.

Almost every country has its own law for cybercrime. In India according to “section 66C of the information security act” carding can lead to 3 years of imprisonment. In California, there are six against credit card fraud ranging from a penalty to ten years of imprisonment. Canada has a similar policy called the “Community Contracts Act” and the “Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984″ in America can lead you to prison for several years.

Measures to prevent carding

For Consumers

• Use a Virtual card if you feel unsecured.
• Use VBV (Verified by Visa) for extra security.
• You can apply for a chargeback if you notice early.
• Always limit the number of password tries and credit limits.
• Do not use nulled or modfied apps as they may contain malware.
• Do not answer spam calls or share your personal info.
• Always ensure the typo and URL of the website is legit.
• Don’t use the credit card on the unsecured website even though they are legit.
• Use two-factor authentication.
• Do not open the email that looks fishy.
• Never open a link that which do not relate to you.

For E-commerce site onwers

E-commerce site owners are more affected by carders due to chargeback and return. below are some of the preventive measures to protect e-commerce sites.

• Use Multi-Factor Authentication.
• Use fraud prevention in payment gateways.
• Use CAPTCHA to filter out bots from sites.
• Use Address verification system and Device fingerprinting.
• Use effective methods to ensure that the user has a possession of the physical card.
• Use IP geolocation check to ensure user address and billing address are the same.
• limit the number of attempts.

what to do when your card is used for carding?

When you get the notification that your card was used for a transaction or when you suspect any activities inform your back to hotlist or block the card or online transaction. you can also suspend your card Temporary.

If you are already a victim of carding you can request a chargeback. it would work definitely in favor of you.

FAQ