Understanding “White Card” Fraud

MSNBC did a piece about how “white card” fraud, where counterfeiter’s create their own credit cards based on stolen magnetic strip data, works including how the cards are made and the technology behind it.

Criminals somehow get their hands on the electronic information stored on a legitimate card’s magnetic stripe. Generally, it’s stolen from a retailer or payment processor’s database, as happened when thieves last year broke into computers at CardSystems Solutions Inc. Luckily for the criminals, CardSystems didn’t store just account numbers — it even stored customer’s secret codes that were never meant to be copied on magnetic stripes. Stolen “mag stripe” data is the holy grail for card thieves.

Then they take the stolen data and write it onto a new, blank card — a card that’s often plain white — and they’re off to the bank.

via MBNBC and well worth the read.