- The data on the stolen payment card fuels the fraud of Tarking Fantôme worldwide
- Burner phones transform identity theft into organized retail schemes
- Luxury products purchased with ghost tapping are quickly sold online
Digital payment services have long promised speed and ease, but the same systems are more and more manipulated for fraud.
Researchers from the Insikt group of Future recorded now warn a new wave of fraud known as “tapping of ghosts” spread quickly through Southeast Asia and beyond since 2020.
The method allows crooks to load the payment details stolen from burners, which are then used for retail fraud.
How ghosts work
The ghost support is based on stolen payment card data, often collected by phishing, social engineering or mobile malware.
Once the information is taken, criminals bypass security by intercepting punctual passwords sent to the victims, then download the stolen data on mobile portfolios related to contactless services such as Apple Pay or Google Pay.
Unions can use burner phones to make shopping in stores or even withdraw money from automatic ticket distributors.
The process shows parallels with identity theft, where personal and financial data is used for profit.
The Insikt group of Future recorded indicates that it has observed organized groups distributing not only phones but also software that can relay card details on devices.
This allows a network of mules that arise as ordinary buyers or tourists, buying high -value products such as jewelry or mobile phones, which are later sold through underground telegrams.
After a security repression on telegram channels, unions moved operations to alternatives such as Xinbi Guaranee and Guaranto Tudou, which continue to facilitate ghost paving agreements.
According to the researchers, the high volume of ADS and mule recruitment on these platforms suggests that many goods circulating in these markets come from the ghost.
This campaign is persistent, and even after several arrests of Chinese and Taiwanese nationals in Singapore in 2024, the decentralized nature of telegram based on telegram makes it difficult.
Ghosts have major implications for retail sales, banks and payment providers.
Since many stores lack strict checks in your client, fraud is difficult to spot at the point of sale.
Insurance companies are also exposed to the benefits of unauthorized transactions.
Just in Singapore, the police recorded hundreds of incidents of data cards linked to mobile portfolios, causing millions of losses.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime describes the tapping of ghosts as part of a greater professionalization of the scam in the region.
“The convergence between the acceleration and professionalization of these operations on the one hand and their geographic expansion in new parts of the region and beyond the other is reflected in a new intensity of the industry – that to which governments must be ready to respond,” said Benedikt Hofmann, UNODC.
How to stay safe
- Implement multi-factory authentication to strengthen the protection against unauthorized use of payment identification information.
- Base on renowned security suites and well-configured firewalls to mitigate the threats of phishing and malicious software before data theft.
- Maintain vigilance when entering online financial details to avoid exposing sensitive information to fraudulent sites.
