Security News > 2021 > May > Data leak marketplaces aim to take over the extortion economy
Cybercriminals are embracing data-theft extortion by creating dark web marketplaces that exist solely to sell stolen data.
Using ransomware data leak sites, Maze warned victims that they would publicly leak stolen data if victims did not pay a ransom.
While dark web marketplaces for illicit goods are not new and have been used to sell stolen data in the past, they were not designed solely for data-theft extortion.
The oldest of these marketplaces is Dark Leak Market who has been selling stolen data since 2019.
The data sold at this site ranges from $100 to $9,000 and has been gathered from ransomware gang's data leak sites and hacking forums, such as RaidForums.
Instead, data theft victims should always treat an attack as a data breach and properly disclose the breach to all customers, employees, and business partners to prevent them from being harmed by the stolen data.
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