What Is Sold (and at What Price) on the Black Market Now
… any number of digital fingerprints including IP address, OS information, time zone and user behavior. Genesis and Richlogs are two top dark marketplaces specializing in the digital fingerprints trade, according to the IntSights report.
Prices are based on the amount of login data a digital browser identity file contains.
“A user who has only a couple of sites in the cache will be sold for a few dollars. A user with dozens of sites can be sold for about $200-$250,” according to the report.
“The level of intrusion into a victim’s life that digital identities provide is alarming. It’s not just credit cards, bank accounts or PII at stake. Digital identities offer threat actors the ability to almost completely take over someone’s online browsing identity. This includes everything from accessing expenses, to tracking daily travel routes, to seeing tax information. The bigger the victim’s digital footprint, the more they can be impersonated by a threat actor,” said Ariel Ainhoren, head of research at IntSights.
“Digital identities, as they are sold on Richlogs and Genesis, offer the whole digital fingerprint of an individual on a plate, providing endless opportunities for fraud, scams, theft and access to the victim’s personal life,” Ainhoren added.
Digital identity theft is a driver for biometrics as a defense. But even that data has been subject to hacks and has already become an additional element in digital identity theft.
“Companies that collect any data bear a responsibility to protect it; however, we’re breaking new ground for the ethical, legal and financial responsibility of organizations that do not effectively protect biometrics. Imagine if the Capital One or Equifax data breach included biometric data, how could most of America change their fingerprint?” said Humberto Gauna, information security consultant at BTB Security.
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