Study reveals flash flood of stolen credit card data in early 2019

That cybercriminals target financial services more than any other industry isn’t surprising. But the dramatic explosion of stolen credit card data over the last year is setting off some alarm bells.

In its latest report on the cyber threat landscape, cybersecurity intelligence firm IntSights reveals that among its sample of financial services customers, the number of batches of leaked credit card numbers jumped from just over 3,000 instances in the first quarter of 2018 to almost 10,000 a year later.

That represents a 212 percent increase or more than triple the number of leaks.

It also includes a jump of more than 50 percent from just the previous quarter, when Q4 2018 leaks numbered about 6,400 batches.

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IntSights also found more than a quarter of all malware attacks last year (25.7 percent) targeted the financial services industry, which was more than any other of the 27 industries tracked.

Credential leaks broadly defined were up 129 percent over the previous year, and the number of malicious applications distributed, including mobile banking apps, more than doubled.

IntSights’ quarterly findings on stolen credit card data are sampled uniformly from its Enterprise Threat Intelligence & Mitigation Platform of financial services customers. Its Q1 2019 report was released April 29.