**Credit Card Theft in Ongoing Web Skimming Attack Uncovered**
*What Every CISO and CEO Needs to Know Right Now*
**Introduction**
Imagine your customers confidently entering their payment information on your website—unaware that right behind the scenes, a silent thief is siphoning off their card details in real time. That’s exactly what’s been happening, according to [a recent Hacker News report](https://thehackernews.com/2026/01/long-running-web-skimming-campaign.html), which uncovered a sophisticated and persistent web skimming campaign that has managed to fly under the radar for nearly seven years. That’s not just bad PR—it’s a direct threat to your customers, your brand, and your bottom line.
Web skimming, also known as Magecart attacks, remains an underestimated risk in many organizations’ security strategies—even though it continues to be a favorite method for cybercriminals. This latest campaign is proof: attackers injected malicious JavaScript code into e-commerce checkout pages to quietly steal credit card data, affecting multiple high-profile platforms.
In this post, I’ll break down how this threat operates, how it manages to persist, and what you can do right now to safeguard your systems and customer data. Whether you’re a CISO looking for technical mitigation strategies or a CEO assessing business risk exposure, the insights here are meant for you.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
– How attackers maintained stealth and control for nearly a decade
– The key signs your site might already be compromised
– Security practices to implement immediately to stay protected
**How the Attack Works: The Dangerous Simplicity of Web Skimming**
At its core, web skimming is alarmingly simple: malicious code is injected into payment pages, quietly collecting customer input and transmitting it to an attacker-controlled server. Unlike high-profile ransomware attacks, these campaigns aim for subtlety, siphoning data without raising alarms.
In the campaign highlighted by The Hacker News, the skimming activity dates back to 2016. Attackers targeted outdated or vulnerable third-party JavaScript libraries embedded on checkout pages, injecting malicious scripts that appeared, on the surface, completely harmless. The malicious payloads were periodically rotated and camouflaged, leveraging obfuscation techniques and whitelisted domains to avoid detection.
Key techniques used included:
– **Compromised third-party dependencies**: Many websites include external scripts for payment processing, UI enhancements, or analytics. These are prime targets for injection.
– **Code obfuscation and frequency control**: Instead of stealing data from every user, the script would only activate intermittently to reduce suspicion.
– **Data exfiltration via lookalike domains**: Victims’ data was sent to servers deceptively named to mimic legitimate assets.
Even high-volume e-commerce platforms missed these threats. Why? Because the malicious scripts were light, stealthy, and well-integrated into legitimate code, making detection difficult without deep client-side monitoring.
**Red Flags That Suggest You May Be Skimmed**
For many organizations, attackers rely on complacency. Web skimming isn’t about brute force; it’s about persistent, often invisible compromise. The longer the intrusion goes undetected, the greater the data theft and liability.
Here are some warning signs to look for:
– **Unexplained changes within JavaScript libraries**: Especially in third-party includes or rarely audited legacy code.
– **Increased customer chargeback rates or fraud alerts** linked to specific shopping sessions.
– **Scripts referencing unfamiliar or suspicious domains**, even if the code itself appears benign.
According to RiskIQ, there are over 2,400 malicious skimming domains active at any given time, and the average Magecart attack goes undetected for over 22 days. The longer the dwell time, the more customers exposed—and the more damage done to your reputation.
Actionable steps to mitigate risk:
– Conduct **regular integrity checks of all website scripts**, especially those loaded from third parties.
– Use **subresource integrity (SRI) hashes** where feasible to verify script consistency.
– Deploy **client-side behavioral monitoring tools** to detect abnormal form input activity and outbound data transmission.
– Audit browser Console and Network traffic to uncover any outbound requests to unknown domains during checkout sessions.
**Prevention Is Possible: A Collaborative Security Mindset**
It’s easy to assume web skimming is a front-end problem for the dev team, but the truth is it affects every part of the organization. Marketing brings in third-party tools, vendors ship code updates, technical debt accumulates. Security needs to be embedded across the entire digital workplace.
Here are practices we should all be prioritizing:
1. **Build security into DevOps and vendor selection**:
– Make web security a standard part of the tech stack evaluation.
– Use a software bill of materials (SBOM) to track dependencies and their update cycles.
2. **Implement Role-Based Access Controls (RBAC)** on content management systems and web applications. The fewer people who can edit checkout pages or scripts, the better.
3. **Use Content Security Policy (CSP) headers** to restrict where scripts can load from and block unapproved external domains.
4. **Review all e-commerce components quarterly**—not just for feature updates, but for security posture. Don’t assume “set it and forget it” will keep you safe.
Security is no longer just about building strong firewalls. Attackers have shifted left—so must we. Let’s bring visibility and control to the front-end and start treating website security like the mission-critical surface that it is.
**Conclusion**
The revelation of this long-running web skimming attack is alarming—but not surprising. With over a decade of stealthy activity and countless customer card data stolen, this campaign is a sobering reminder that even the most basic aspects of your digital presence can be ripe for exploitation.
The good news? As leaders—CISOs, CEOs, and information security specialists—we have the tools and practices to prevent it. Through stronger digital hygiene, deeper transparency in our codebases, and a collaborative approach between departments, we can significantly reduce our exposure.
So here’s your action step: review your current client-side security practices this quarter. Audit your third-party components. Confirm integrity monitoring and behavioral alerts are in place. And most importantly—don’t wait for a breach to start taking front-end security seriously.
You protect your networks, your cloud, your endpoints—now it’s time to protect your checkout pages.
_For more details on the discovered campaign, see the source: https://thehackernews.com/2026/01/long-running-web-skimming-campaign.html_
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