Long story short. Check your credit/debit card statements for something similar to the following line item:
09/25 DIGITAL AGE 888-529-98 CYPRUS, SE $24.99
In my family alone, we got hit by this fraudulent charge on three separate cards over the span of a week. I'd posted about this on my personal site, mostly a warning to family and frends. Since posting about it last Tuesday,
fourteen twenty-two people have commented that they'd been hit by the identical charge.
In the hopes that the people behind this get caught, or at least aren't able to enjoy their ill-gotten gains, I'm posting this here as well. The bad news is that I'm guessing a good chunk of the Kos community will be impacted. The good news is that knowledge is power, and it's better to dispute the charge and cancel your card now than get surprised in a month or two with even bigger charges.
There's not much information online about this right now.
Here's a forum where I first confirmed that the charge was bogus. About.com has posted some
good information as well (including some additional fraudulent charges to look out for).
The victims of the Digital Age Cyprus fraud are diverse. Some reported their impacted credit cards had never been used online, eliminating Internet commerce as a suspect cause. One possibility that can't be overlooked is whether it is linked to the Card Systems credit card data theft that occurred from September 2004 through May 2005.
According to Congressional testimony provided by John Perry, President and CEO of Card Systems Solutions, the theft was carried out through the use of a malicious script planted on their system through an Internet-facing application. The malware was programmed to run every 4 days, at which time it sought out a specific file type and extracted credit card holder's names, account numbers, expiration dates and CVV codes. The extracted information was zipped and forwarded to an FTP site where it was presumably retrieved by the attackers.
CardSystems processed credit card data for all major credit card companies, including MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Discover, JCB and Diners Club. An estimated 40 million customers were at risk; of these, 263,000 accounts were known to have been compromised.
I would
strongly suggest keeping a close eye on any charges on any of your debit or credit cards for at least the next month. And be prepared to cancel them immediately if you see something from DIGITAL AGE. Bastards.