The crypto market has never disappointed hackers in terms of what they can exploit, and the trend continues even in the bearish market. While that is true, hackers, too, have been constantly upgrading their nature of scams to pull in more money, and the selling of crypto accounts is the newest.
According to Privacy Affairs, a security provider company, crypto hackers are now selling hacked accounts at $30. The company conducted online research titled "The Dark Net Price Index" to investigate the fraudulent activities carried out by hackers. The report, as published on April 24, claimed that the hackers have been exposing various kinds of financially sensitive details of the hacked accounts on the dark net.
While this initially seemed like an uncanny potential for hackers to disclose information about private crypto accounts, it was later found that the personal accounts were already hacked before being sold to crypto investors and traders. No wonder how these dark net hackers had all the private information of these account owners, even before they realized it.
While you might think such activity was restricted to cryptocurrency accounts alone, you might be mistaken. One cannot take the dark net hackers lightly, and there's more reason for concern. As disclosed by Privacy Affairs, credit card accounts with $5000 or more were also sold on the dark net. The hackers didn't even leave out bank access and passwords. All of these were sold at varying prices, $110 and $60, respectively. And as goes by the demand and supply rule, the higher the credit card or the bank balance, the higher their prices. Accounts on crypto exchange platforms like Kraken were sold at the highest price of $1170, while Bittrex accounts were sold at a lower rate of $30., with several intermediary rates for platforms like Coinbase, crypto.com, and Binance.
If you think you are free of all risks since you haven't linked your bank accounts with any online application or software, it is time to get into the real picture. The dark net hackers have also put up social media profiles, Airbnb accounts, and email IDs for sale. In fact, the price for these accounts starts as low as $25! Could you imagine your lifetime followers and content being sold at $25? Of course, that is a nightmare.
The issue of hacking crypto accounts and disclosing private information on the dark net has been a persistent problem in the crypto industry, leading to several crypto exchange platforms facing tough backlashes. Coinbase recently struggled to fight against a lawsuit filed by one of its customers. The customer allegedly lost 90H% of his entire savings as he fell prey to a similar scam. Evidently, this is not just a new low in the crypto market but has also wreaked havoc amongst investors and exchange platforms.
The solution? As Privacy Affairs' research Miklos Zoltan claims, one should be more careful and alert while using the internet, especially while linking their financial details. But how do we stay alert if dark net hackers change their road map every time? Experts are yet to figure that out.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information, but it will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.