Michael Reitblat of Forter, a San Francisco-based provider of e-commerce fraud prevention and detection services, analyzed more than 3 million transactions between September and November of this year. And what he found probably shouldn’t surprise you.

"Thieves don't want 100 Michael Kors bags; they want the money.”  Scammers are in the market for diamond necklaces, Fitbits and Apple products, which they resell on the web in the "gray market" – and where they glean even more credit card data from unsuspecting online shoppers.

The Scammer M.O.    The thief will obtain either your credit card data or your sign-in credentials at a merchant's website via the so-called dark web. He or she will then use your information to buy goods to sell on the secondary market. Afterward, the scammer will promote and resell the products at a discount on his/her own website. When a buyer purchases an item, he unwittingly gives his credit card details to the thief. While the buyer often gets the purloined goods, the scammer now has his information, and the cycle begins again.

Thieves have also stepped up their marketing game. For instance, they've created websites that mirror those of legitimate merchants, and they use social media to funnel traffic to their pages, where they resell the items they bought with stolen data, Reitblat said.

When it comes to luxury items purchased with your stolen data, thieves' top three favorite goods are Tissot watches, Michael Kors bags and Ralph Lauren "Ricky" purses. Scammers also love reselling electronics. The top 3 items in that department are refurbished MacBooks, Android phones, and memory cards.

Today's thief also reinvests his ill-gotten gains toward building an online presence and boosting the site in search engine results.