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Dark Web marketplace Hydra rakes in $1.37bn in crypto
Friday, May 28, 2021
Russian-language dark Web marketplace Hydra has pulled in a huge $1.37 billion worth of crypto-currencies in 2020, up from $9.4 million in 2016.
Ilia Kolochenko, founder of ImmuniWeb, and a member of the Europol data protection experts network, says after several high-profile shutdowns and server seizures of famous dark Web marketplaces, cyber criminals are significantly more prudent.
"The publicly or semi-publicly accessible forums and marketplaces are just a tip of the cyber crime iceberg. Professional cyber mercenaries do not advertise their services, silently selling stolen data to trusted customers from organised crime or governments. They lawfully rent AWS [Amazon Web Services] or similar infrastructure to host their communication centres, fully-encrypted and protected, and totally inconspicuous from the outside.
“Their targeted hacking campaigns are usually untraceable and uninvestigable; moreover, even the victims oftentimes fail to detect the well-prepared and noiseless intrusions. The mercenaries have access to banking institutions, lawyers and offshore companies to silently cash out their loot in any currency and in any form, including gold and real estate.”
According to Kolochenko, public forums in Russian that offer conversion of payments into gift cards or cash in rubles are mainly oriented for beginners.
“Both layers of cyber crime markets are, however, projected to grow in 2021. Lack of cooperation between international law enforcement agencies, missing extradition treaties between the countries and growing political tensions – all hinder prosecution of cyber crime, while proliferation of crypto-currencies spurs the feeling of impunity among the attackers.” Read Full Article
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