New Delhi: What is your credit card number worth? Don't be surprised if you find it listed on one of the underground warez sites for a few dollars. Stolen credit card numbers can be bought on the net pretty easily and that too by just paying a measly sum anywhere between 50 cents and 5 dollars.

Cyber criminals have set up underground economy servers for the sole purpose of illegal e-commerce transactions. Bank account logins, passwords, emails, email passwords, personal identification numbers (PIN), credit card details etc. all are hosted on such servers and sold blatantly.

A latest internet security threat report released by Symantec, an IT security company has highlighted the point that credit cards are the most frequently traded item on such underground economy servers, and it constitutes as much as 22% of the total illegal economic activity on such servers. Headquartered in California, Symantec Corporation was founded in April 1982 and has more than 17500 employees. Symantec is an industry leader in providing Internet and computer security applications.

The location of these servers is spread across the globe but US accounted for their major share with as much as 64% of the underground economy servers located there, Germany comes second with 12% and Sweden has 9% of these servers.

Phishing, keylogging, and organized attacks were the major ways used to hack the credit card numbers from unsuspecting users. Symantec also found some instances, in which the hackers posed as trusted websites and used them to hack credit card and other personal details.

If you feel that your card might be compromised, check your credit card statement immediately for suspicious transactions. Many Indian banks like ICICI provide transaction SMS alerts which inform you about all transactions on your mobile phone immediately. Subscribe to such a service if your bank offers one. It would also be prudent to call your credit card customer support for getting a new number issued. Banks usually do this free of charge or a very nominal charge, which would certainly be alot less than what you might end up losing.