Dark web marketplaces are famous for their pharmaceuticals and weapons souks but nowadays a lot more variety has been lurking there than drugs and guns. You can buy almost anything you want.
Researchers at an Ireland based Fraud Prevention software developer firm Trustev revealed that numerous small-scale marketplaces sell unusual stuff like Spotify accounts and counterfeit hospital badges as well as police IDs for just $10. These fraudsters can cheaply imitate law enforcement officials, but this is just one of the various potential dangers that can be found at these unregulated souks.
Nucleus is one such Dark Web marketplace identified by Trustev. Here buyers can acquire lifetime subscription to numerous popular streaming services for only a few bucks apart from cheap fake IDs. The popularity of stolen digital subscriptions is immense at Dark Web, but the URLs and user IDs of the profiles are kept confidential to avoid the marketplace from gaining unnecessary publicity.
At Nucleus, one listed item was the sale of a fake Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare Hospital employee badge at a meagre price of $11. The name and picture on the badge can be easily customized by the buyers prior to purchasing the item.
The other identifiable listing was of a counterfeited NYPD detective badge also at $11.
Moreover, a lifetime subscription offer of Spotify can also be bought for $3.99 at Nucleus. Another listing was quite prospective since it allowed users to purchase around 100-lifetime subscriptions for only $99.00. Buyers can easily resell them for a higher price.
An investigation for illustrating the way credit card information is usually circulated in the wild was conducted by Trustev. However, much more was piled up by its dragnet.
Search pages are also used by some marketplaces that are almost identical to Google GOOGL-0.11%. It allows these marketplaces to offer easy access and buying facility of valid credit and debit cards. Even fake social security cards, state licenses and credit cards can also be bought for under $20, says Trustev.
Jonathan Bowers, one of the researchers at Trustev analyst team, stated that most of these items are on sale at markets that are lesser-known. This shows the scope of sales have extended past the biggest players of the dark web such as Middle Earth and Agora. These markets deliberately remain anonymous as described by Bowers:
“They limit the number of users so they don’t get a high profile.”
Source: Forbes. | Follow @HackRead