WyzGuys Tech Talk

Your computer might be for sale on the Dark Net.  And to add insult to injury, it might be worth just two cents!  How can this be?  Well if your computer has been hijacked and is part of a botnet, you can buy 1000 computers in a botnet for just $20 on the Dark Web.  That’s two cents apiece.

What other items are for sale in the cyber-crime markets on the Internet?  For $25 you can get someone’s personal identity, something known as a “Fullz” in cyber-crime parlance.  This includes:

• Full name
• Street address and phone numbers
• Email addresses and passwords
• Date of birth
• Social Security Number
• Bank account number, routing number, and account type
• Online banking credentials including passwords and possibly answers to secret questions
• Credit-card information including track 2 data and associated PINs

Other high value items include:

• Credit and debit cards for $3 to $10 each depending on volume.
• Exploit software kits including tutorials on how to use them
• Botnets to rent at $20 per 1000 computers
• Other services, such as DDOS (distributed denial of service attacks) for $100 per day
• Counterfeit US dollars and other currency

The Internet has become reminiscent of the the Wild West we see in the movies, where criminals roamed at large and lawlessness was the rule more than the exception.  The point here is that we all need to be vigilant and doing all we can to protect ourselves from these sorts of exploits.  In coming days we will be exploring in more detail the actions we should be undertaking to secure our computers and personal information from cyber-thieves.