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Globally, cybercrime costs hundreds of billions of dollars each year and it comes in many forms, from computer hacking to phishing scams.At the forefront of the fight is the U.S. Secret Service. While law enforcement is trying to stay on top of it, people are urged to do their part because in the end it's the consumers who will foot the bill.A listing of stolen credit card numbers was found last month when authorities searched two homes on Quiet Way in Louisville. "I'll be pretty conclusive -- it probably came from a recent data breech," said Paul Johnson with the U.S. Secret Service. "In this case we hit the mother lode."
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PC Speak: Abney Associates Tech Blog Protecting your identity
Globally, cybercrime costs hundreds of billions of dollars each year and it comes in many forms, from computer hacking to phishing scams. At the forefront of the fight is the U.S. Secret Service. While law enforcement is trying to stay on top of it, people are urged to do their part because in the end it's the consumers who will foot the bill. A listing of stolen credit card numbers was found last month when authorities searched two homes on Quiet Way in Louisville.
"I'll be pretty conclusive -- it probably came from a recent data breech," said Paul Johnson with the U.S. Secret Service. "In this case we hit the mother lode." According to Johnson, who heads up the Louisville Secret Service Office, the paperwork, an encoder, and a laptop -- everything needed to wreak havoc on someone's credit -- were in a child's backpack. "Stolen credit card numbers get re-encoded on a re-encoding device. You go to a legitimate store and you want to start buying as many of these as you can," Johnson said.
