Worrying trend in credit card data security

A new BitDefender study which has revealed some concerning statistics on the personal protection of credit card data.

97% of 2,210 respondents aged 18 to 65 said they purchased goods and services online. Of these, 57% declared that they had replied with sensitive information to potentially fraudulent requests for data, leaving themselves at risk of fraud and their account being compromised.

When asked if they know about the phishing phenomenon/fake sites, they gave both affirmative (73%) and negative answers (27%).

In addition to that, a huge majority (98%) declared that they had received a message in which they were asked to provide their credit card details at least once. These messages were sent by impersonators of various (financial) institutions (65%) or even by unknown individuals (35%). What is worse – 57% of respondents actually answered such requests, and provided their sensitive information.

“The pessimistic fact is that if one performs a quick and simple search on internet, he or she can easily find credit card credentials to exploit,” said Sabina Datcu, BitDefender E-Threats Analysis and Communication Specialist and author of the survey. “Moreover, there is a huge number of cybercriminals selling this kind of information for different amounts of money.”