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Verizon’s annual data breach report states that 86% of personal data breaches are about money, and 55% are committed by organized criminal groups. And with the amount of money they can make, they are not going anywhere anytime soon.

After stealing your personal information, hackers organize it in a database that they monetize in various ways.
They can use the data themselves.

Hackers could profit from your stolen personal information by exploiting it to make transactions or perpetrate fraud, such as:

Withdrawing money from your bank account
Obtaining new credit cards
Making online purchases
Borrowing money from the bank or your friends and family
Making fraudulent health insurance claims
Paying off their debts

Hackers may sell your personal information to other criminals

Another way hackers profit from stolen personal data is by selling it in masses to other criminals on the black market for thousands of dollars. Buyers can purchase the stolen data they are interested in and use it for their malicious activities.

For instance, personally identifiable information such as names of breach victims, their Social Security numbers, home addresses, and dates of birth can be used to make fraudulent transactions.

Buyers can also clone credit card numbers and security codes and use them for identity theft. The buyer can, for example, apply for loans in the victim’s name or file false tax reports. And they can use stolen emails in phishing attacks, social engineering tactics, and DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks.

How Much Do My Hacked Accounts Cost?

According to the Dark Web Price Index 2021 by Privacy Affairs, cybercriminals can make quite a profit from hacked personal data.

Everything from credit cards to Netflix accounts is up for sale on the dark web.
Financial Accounts

To get stolen credit card details with an account balance up to $1,000 costs $150. Credit card details with an account balance up to $5,000 cost $240.

A bank account with a minimum of $2,000 will only cost a cybercriminal $120 to obtain the login details. And stolen PayPal account details with a minimum of $1,000 also cost $120.

To transfer money from a stolen PayPal account with a balance of $1,000 – $3,000 will cost a cybercriminal $340, while to transfer money from a stolen PayPal account with a balance of $3,000 only costs $180. And to obtain the login information from 50 hacked PayPal accounts costs $200.

Western Union transfer from stolen accounts above $1,000 costs a mere $45. A verified Stripe account with a payment gateway goes for $1,000.

One of the most valuable accounts on the dark web is crypto accounts. A hacked and verified Kraken account goes for $810, a hacked and verified Coinbase account goes for $610, while a hacked and verified Cex.io account costs $410.
Social Media Accounts

Social media and email accounts vary between $35 and $80.

A hacked Twitter account costs $35, while you can pay up to $80 for a hacked Gmail account.

To get a thousand followers, likes, or shares for your social media accounts varies between $1 and $25. For instance, hackers ask for as little as $5 to buy 1000 followers for your Instagram account, and the same following costs $2 for Spotify.

The price of an email database with up to 4.78 million emails can go for as low as $10. Private USA dentists database with 122k emails goes for $50. And the USA Voter database from various states costs $100.
Scans of Documents and Physical Copies

Passports are also one of the most expensive items listed on the black market index. The highest physical (Maltese) passports can fetch a whopping $6,500, while the lowest (Lithuanian) passports go for $1,500. For a physical forged national I.D., hackers ask as low as $50 (Newjersey ID), but in some cases, up to $500 (Latvian ID).

Prices for forged copies of driver’s licenses of different states vary between $20-$100. A U.S. driver’s license goes for $100, while an Australian driver’s license only fetches $20.

Hackers ask for $8 for a hacked Uber account and $14 for a hacked Uber driver’s account.

U.S. valid social security number goes for $2.

An eBay account with a high reputation (1,000+ feedback) might reach $1,000. While a fake U.S. Green Card sells for $150.

What You Can Do to Protect Yourself

To prevent your personal information from ending up on the black market, follow these basic guidelines.
Use a Strong Password

Use a password manager to help generate strong and unique passwords for each one of your social media accounts.

Generic passwords such as your birth date or the name of your first pet are easy to crack.

Make sure your passwords are long (at least 16 digits) varied with letters, numbers, and symbols.
Enable multi-factor authentication

Enabling multi-factor authentication on your accounts means that if hackers can access your login details, they’d not be able to access your account with just the passwords.

This is because multi-factor authentication requires a password plus something only you have access to — like a backup code, tapping a number on your screen, or a text message sent to your phone.
Be wary of public WiFi.

Avoid accessing sensitive accounts while you are on public WiFi. According to a study conducted by Kaspersky Security, nearly a quarter of the world’s public WiFi hotspots don’t use any encryption.
We found our personal data on the dark web. Is yours there, too?
This is why hackers often target users on public WiFi to steal their login details. Suppose cybercriminals can access the login information of one of your online accounts. In that case, they can use brute force to crack the passwords of your other accounts and steal money or sensitive personal information.

Always use a VPN and a robust antivirus with a firewall while browsing on public WiFi so your data can be encrypted while in transit.
Be careful while browsing online.

Change the default privacy settings on your devices. And always clear or disable your browser cookies. You should also limit the information you share on social media. For instance, don’t use your full names on your social media accounts. And always read the terms and conditions before using an application or service.
Conclusion 👨‍🏫

As discussed earlier, data breaches are about money which means hackers are here to stay.

Cybercriminals will continue to target remote employees. And the growth of 5G will expand the bandwidth of connected devices, making them more vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

These reports show the importance of keeping your valuable data and personal information private and secure.

We found our personal data on the dark web. Is yours there, too?

By Dan Patterson, Graham Kates

March 25, 2019 / 12:09 PM / CBS News

The little drips of personal data leaked from every major data breach—your name, email, phone number, Social Security number, and mailing address—pool in a murky corner of the internet known as the dark web. Some of these leaks might seem relatively insignificant, but criminals exploit your personal data for profit and to help other criminal operations prosper. The dark web is where these transactions happen.

The spectrum of threat actors operating on the dark web is broad, ranging from lone wolf hacktivists to nation-states and organized criminal operations. What they have in common, however, is a lust for personal data. The recent Gnosticplayers hack, for example, obtained nearly 840 million records from 32 companies. And according to cybersecurity experts, while unique records sell for cheap—a portion of the trove was listed for 1.2431 bitcoin, or about $4,940—in aggregate our personal details help enrich these nefarious operators.
Navigating the dark web

Like the traditional internet that we use every day, the dark web is a network of websites. But unlike our traditional internet, the dark web requires special security software to encrypt browsing activity and hide a user's location and identifiable details.

There are countless legitimate uses for the dark web. Political activists living in totalitarian states use the encrypted web to share mission-critical information, and reporters in conflict regions often use the dark web to communicate with sources. But the dark web's discreet nature is also exploited by hackers and criminals to trade in weapons, drugs, stolen data, and other illicit goods and services.
dark-web-market.jpg

Hacked personal data may seem benign relative to other harmful material for sale on the dark web, but according to Emily Wilson, the vice president of research at cybersecurity firm Terbium Labs, in the hands of criminal actors your personal data can have serious and potentially dangerous consequences.

"Data is transmitted very quickly. There's no ship time. Criminals buy it, they get it instantly, and they can cash it out," said Wilson. "Data is often good for a long time. If somebody uses your credit card, you get a fraud alert, and get a new credit card number. That's a loss to you and that's annoying. But what about your Social [Security number], what about your name, what about your address or your driver's license numbers? These are data points that can be exploited for decades or for a lifetime. And once it's out it's nearly impossible to get it back."

One dark web data site sold our information along with several thousand other individuals for less than $100 in Bitcoin.

We asked Terbium Labs to do a deep dive into the dark web and search for any information about us that had been leaked as a result of hack. What they found was disturbing. Our personal information was mixed in with wholesale data dumps of information about thousands of people. The building blocks to not only replicate our own identities online, but everyone else packaged along with us.

"Identity theft and other scams often rely on incomplete information," wrote Wilson, in the report she prepared for us. "These scams exploit and bypass systems designed to reduce user friction first and provide security second."

One reporter's name triggered matches dating back to 2015 on what Wilson described as a "fraud site" named Black Stuff. His name also popped up among leaked email that included tens of thousands of rows of data from thousands of people. The leaks, Wilson said, may have included passwords.

Someone with the same name appears to be further compromised, she found. That person, "appears repeatedly exposed through work-related leaks of code and information, including contact details."

The other reporter was a bit more obscured, but the findings are nevertheless disturbing. An apartment building where he recently lived is lighting up the dark web.

The address "has partial matches on a series of doxes," she wrote, using a term that refers to the act of publishing someone's contact information as a sort of malicious revenge. Information from people at the residence also appeared on a fraud site called Omerta, as well as on a well-known non-dark web site: WikiLeaks. The leak in that instance involves campaign donations, and information includes people's full names, addresses (including apartment numbers), emails and even phone numbers.

Our personal records are packaged with the records from tens of thousands of other individuals. This year, the seemingly-endless parade of hacks and data breaches includes the video game Fortnite, Dunkin' Donuts, and the Dow Jones company.

The real harm, said Wilson, is that once your data is for sale on the dark web, it's likely to remain there for years to come. "You're just another cog in the wheel. You're just another resource. Data is often repackaged, resold, re-released, which means, if you're exposed once, it's going to be used hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of times before it's all said and done."

844-5130-841
That phone number isn't even in the normal sequence. Too many scammers these days.

Just in case, check your credit card charges regularly for a while. You should be doing that anyway.

I get about 2 a day

I get about 2 a day

hehehe