Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

It’s that time of year to start thinking kindly about charities, especially if you steal credit card numbers for a living.

Symantec reports that it is seeing an awful lot of cyber thieves using charities as efficient ways to verify that their stolen numbers are valid. Traditionally, those thieves have used small retail online purchases to perform that verification function, but retailers have been cracking down on such practices while many charities are still more lax. Some charities, however, are starting get tough. The story reports that, last month, the Red Cross was forced to return nearly $7,000 that was donated in the course of 700 fraudulent transactions, said Carrie Martin, a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross.