FBI warns of new online threat to personal, credit card information

by Rahel Solomon, Jennifer Schlesinger, CNBC

Federal authorities have a consumer warning for shoppers. Hidden skimming devices (commonly thought to be attached to gas station pumps and ATMs) have gone high-tech.

“It’s hard to put really — definite numbers around it. But one thing we know for sure is that millions of credit card numbers have been stolen, even over the course of the past two years,” Herb Stapleton, section chief for the FBI’s cyber division told CNBC.

This new type of skimming is called e-skimming or Magecart.

Cybercriminals can gain access to your personal and credit card information in a number of ways. They can break into a web server directly or break into a common server that supports many online shopping websites to compromise them all and once a site has been compromised, the shopper can’t spot the difference.

 

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