Security News

Positive Technologies' experts have analyzed the ten most active forums on the dark web, which offer services for hacking websites, buying and selling databases, and accessing web resources. The research discovered that in 90% of cases, users of dark web forums will search for hackers who can provide them with access to a particular resource or who can download a user database.

A Comparitech report found that Japan and the UAE have the most expensive identities available on illicit marketplaces at an average price of $25. Personal information from US citizens found on the Dark Web-ranging from Social Security numbers, stolen credit card numbers, hacked PayPal accounts, and more-is worth just $8 on average, according to a new report from tech research firm Comparitech. "After a data breach or successful phishing campaign, much of the stolen personal information is sold on black markets. Many such marketplaces reside on the dark web. The median credit limit on a stolen credit card is 24 times the price of the card. The median account balance of a hacked PayPal account is 32 times the price on the dark web," Comparitech's Paul Bischoff wrote.

U.S. and Bulgarian authorities this week took control of the dark web site used by the NetWalker ransomware cybercrime group to publish data stolen from its victims. Separately, the Bulgarian National Investigation Service and General Directorate Combating Organized Crime seized a dark web hidden resource used by NetWalker ransomware affiliates - i.e., cybercrime groups responsible for identifying and attacking high-value victims using the ransomware - to provide payment instructions and communicate with victims.

The dark web websites associated with the Netwalker ransomware operation have been seized by law enforcement from the USA and Bulgaria. Netwalker is a Ransomware-as-a-Service operation that began operating in late 2019, where affiliates are enlisted to distribute the ransomware and infect victims in return for a 60-75% share of ransom payments.

Anonymous and private, yet busted - we explain how darkweb sites sometimes keep your secrets and sometimes don't. We tell you the tale of a company with a cool name but allegedly with creepy habits coded into its browser extensions.

As you can imagine, it operated on the so-called dark web, and you'd have needed the Tor browser to access it, using a special web address ending in. As it happens, the epithet dark in the word dark web isn't a metaphorical reference implying that everything on the dark web is evil and dystopian.

Europol cops have taken down dark-web souk DarkMarket, after arresting an Australian citizen living in Germany who they claim was operating the world's biggest online bazaar of its kind. DarkMarket had nearly 500,000 users and more than 2,400 sellers, an official announcement from Europol on Tuesday said, calling it the "World's largest largest illegal marketplace on the dark web."

Europol on Tuesday said it shut down DarkMarket, the world's largest online marketplace for illicit goods, as part of an international operation involving Germany, Australia, Denmark, Moldova, Ukraine, the U.K.'s National Crime Agency, and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. The illegal internet market specialized in the sales of drugs, counterfeit money, stolen or forged credit card information, anonymous SIM cards, and off-the-shelf malware.

"As a result of COVID-19 and associated global trends, demand for malicious and illicit goods, services and data have reached new peak highs across dark web marketplaces," said researchers in a Friday analysis. Upon a deep-dive investigation into the underground marketplace, researchers found that the pricing for stolen payment cards has soared in 2020; jumping from $14.64 in 2019 to $20.16 in 2020.

Hackers have set up an auction site on the dark web to sell 250,000 databases stolen from tens of thousands of breached MySQL servers. Back in May, BleepingComputer reported about an attacker that was stealing SQL databases from online shops and threatening victims that their data would become public if they did not pay 0.06 BTC. Although the hacker's website on the clear web listed only 31 databases, the number of abuse reports for the wallet left in the ransom note was above 200, indicating a much larger operation.