"A Network of Knockoff Apparel Stores Exposed 330,000 Customer Credit Cards"

A database storing hundreds of thousands of unencrypted credit card numbers and cardholder information was found exposed on the Internet. The database had around 330,000 credit card numbers, cardholder names, and complete billing addresses when it was taken offline, with the amount of data growing in real-time as users placed new orders. The data included all the information a criminal would need to execute fraudulent purchases and transactions using a cardholder's information. The exposed credit card data belong to customers who made purchases through a network of nearly identical websites claiming to sell designer products. When a customer made a purchase on these websites, their credit card details and billing information were stored in a database that was left unprotected on the Internet. The unencrypted financial information was accessible to anyone who knew the database's IP address. Anurag Sen, a security researcher, discovered the exposed credit card records and requested assistance from TechCrunch in notifying the owner. Sen was not the first to uncover the exposed data, since a ransom message left on the exposed database indicated that the data had already been discovered. Instead of attempting to identify the owner and reporting the exposure appropriately, the unidentified individual claimed to have copied the records and demanded a small sum of cryptocurrency to return it. This article continues to discuss the exposure of customer credit cards by a network of knockoff apparel online stores. 

TechCrunch reports "A Network of Knockoff Apparel Stores Exposed 330,000 Customer Credit Cards"