Black Market in Stolen Credit Card Data Thrives on Internet

Tom Zeller Jr. reports for the New York Times in Tuesday's edition on the illicit trading in stolen credit card data that takes place on the Internet.

"There's so much to this," said Jim Melnick, a former Russian affairs analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency who is now the director of threat development at iDefense, a company in Reston, Va., that tracks cybercrime.

"The story that needs to be told is the larger, long-term threat to the American financial industry. It's a cancer. It's not going to kill you now, but slowly, over time."

Separately, Julie Creswell and Eric Dash reported that the nation's largest credit card issuers were still uncertain which customer accounts were affected by a computer security breach that MasterCard reported last Friday.