How Cybercriminals Sell Fake Data and Fall for It Too

Genuine data leaks like BigBasket, Mobikwik, and Domino’s where data of billions of customers, including sensitive personal and financial information were made public, has offered fodder for fraudsters to manipulate data and earn revenue from it.

Prashanth Guruswamy, Co-founder, InstaSafe, a cyber security firm told The Quint that since data is the new ‘oil’, malicious actors are selling off such data in bulk, and cryptocurrency is being used as the method of payment in most cases owing to the ease and untraceability of crypto transactions.

One of the biggest marketplaces in this regard is the dark web, which in recent times has become a hotbed for leak-based transactions.

Sourajeet Majumder, a cyber expert, points out that hackers usually post samples of the data they have managed to exploit, and for both the sample set, as well as the complete data, payment is done through Bitcoins.

Interestingly, a recent discussion thread on the dark web…