A credit card theft service known as Caramel seems to be gaining more and more popularity , allowing malicious users to commit financial fraud easily and automatically.
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Credit card fraud works when the user makes a purchase using their card .
Once a purchase is made, credit card details are intercepted and sent to remote servers to be collected by threat actors.
Malicious users then use these cards to make their own online purchases or sell their details on dark web, for just a few dollars.
The Caramel theft service was discovered by Domain Tools, which states that the platform is operated by a Russian cybercrime organization called“CaramelCorp.”
This service provides subscribers with a skimmer, deployment instructions, and a campaign management framework, which is everything a threat actor needs to start their own credit card theft operation.
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The Caramel service is sold only to Russian-speaking hackers, using an initial vetting process that excludes those who use machine translation or are inexperienced in this field.
A lifetime subscription costs $2,000, a steep price for budding threat actors, but it promises Russian-speaking hackers full customer support, code upgrades, and evolving anti-detection measures.
Vendors also make unverified claims that Caramel can bypass protection services from Cloudflare, Akamai, Incapsula, and others.
Buyers are provided with a “quick start” guide to JavaScript that work particularly well in specific CMSs (content management systems). Since credit card skimming scripts are written in JavaScript, Caramel offers subscribers a variety of techniques to prevent them from being easily detected.
Credit card data collection is done through the setInterval(). Although this method does not seem efficient, it can help steal details even from incomplete purchases.
See also: Russia: Third hacking group arrested for stealing credit cards
Finally, campaigns are managed through a panel where the subscriber can oversee the compromised e-shops, manage the portals for receiving stolen data, and more.
Continuous development and promotion have helped Caramel become more popular in the underground community.
Customers of e-commerce platforms can protect themselves from credit card skimmers by using private, disposable cards, setting limits and charging restrictions, or simply using electronic payment systems instead of cards.
