CarderIM Encrypted Hacker Chat

Hackers who trade credit card and stolen identities online are now communicating with each other over an encrypted chat program called Carder IM.

From Infoworld here:

Hackers have built their own encrypted IM program to shield themselves from law enforcement trying to spy on their communication channels.

The application, called CarderIM, is a sophisticated tool hackers are using to sell information such as credit-card numbers or e-mail addresses, part of an underground economy dealing in financial data, said Andrew Moloney, business director for financial services for RSA, part of EMC Corp., during a presentation at the International e-crime Congress in London on Wednesday.

CarderIM’s logo is humorous: two overlapping half suns in the same red-and-yellow tones as MasterCard International Inc.’s logo. The name, CarderIM, is a reference to the practice of “carding,” or converting stolen credit-card details into cash or goods.

Often, the hackers who obtain credit-card numbers aren’t interested in trying to convert the data into cash. But other people are. On the Internet, the two can meet. But the data buyers and sellers are constantly on the lookout for the “rippers” — security experts or police who are gathering data on them, Moloney said.

“To get ahold of it [CarderIM] you need to be part of one of the trusted groups, which we have agents within,” Moloney said.

Hackers may have needed a more secure IM application, since most of the free ones, such as ICQ, transmit messages in clear text, which can be intercepted, Moloney said.

I’m not familiar with CarderIM, but I suspect that it is an IRC channel that is encrypted, or it is a thin client applet that connects to a remote server using strong authentication.  For those that are not criminals and want to use encrypted chat, Skype is available.