Click for larger image.

You’ve seen us blog about problems with Google’s Blogger service before, but now it appears to have an ongoing problem with “malicious” content of a different sort — illicit pages which brazenly expose stolen credit card information.

I ran across this article earlier today on KOAA.com (the NBC television affiliate in Colorado Springs), which stated that:

“News First Investigates has uncovered what looks like a major internet breach. We found a list of hundreds of credit card numbers and personal information on a website hosted by Google.”

“We contacted Google and within 30-minutes the web log, called a blog, was down. We’ve also contacted local and federal authorities, and a few people in Colorado Springs who’s information was on the site.”

“The person behind the blog that was posted on blogger.com issued a warning at the top, stating ‘Where the cyber life begin and nothing is secure.’ That point’s proven with a list of hundreds of credit card numbers, names and addresses.”

Soon after seeing this, I did some digging, and discovered a couple of other pages which were also hosting pages that simply contained (suspected) stolen credit & debit card numbers, names, addresses, ZIP codes, and CVV codes.

The page in the screenshot above has had critical information obscured (for obvious reasons) and has now been removed for “…violations of terms of service…” but it is yet another reminder that cyber crime seemingly knows no bounds these days.

Not to knock Blogger — on the contrary. I think they responded very quickly and are doing the best they can to respond to these issues.

I use Blogger personally, and I find it extraordinarily useful. It’s a shame to see so much abuse. The specter of this sort of illicit disclosure is very troubling. Thank goodness it was removed quickly when it was reported.

Good job, Google!

Let’s be careful out there!

Paul “Fergie” Ferguson
Internet Security Intelligence
Advanced Threats Research