14 DAY TRIAL // In his journeys in the underworld of the internet, security researcher Brian Krebs came across a website that since 2010 is selling sensitive information belonging to Americans for just a few dollars.
Social security numbers, birth dates and mother maiden names, all necessary to open an account on someone's behalf, are available to anyone with an evil plan in mind.
“The more credits you buy, the cheaper the searches are per credit: Six credits cost $4.99 (3.5 EUR); 35 credits cost $20.99 (14 EUR), and $100.99(70 EUR) buys you 230 credits. Customers with special needs to can avail themselves of the “reseller plan,” which promises 1,500 credits for $500.99(350 EUR), and 3,500 credits for $1000.99(700 EUR),” Krebs revealed.
If we consider that a successful hit costs three credits, imagine how many lives can be affected with someone who wants to make a smart investment.
These sort of websites also offer package deals for those who want to launch mass operations, but they also give the opportunity for a future cybercriminal to be picky, allowing him to search for the information of a specific individual.
It turns out that if purchased in bulk, 20,000 complete identities can go as low as nine cents per record, while details from the premium database can go as high as sixteen cents. The number of records is not clear but the owners of the domain claim that 99% of American citizens can be found in their database.
The initial investigations revealed that this website might be controlled by a known Vietnamese hacker, but as it turns out, he is merely reselling another site's products as his own.
Unfortunately, you never know when your name ends up in their databases, especially since they claim to be making daily updates, so be very careful with suspicious emails, set strong passwords and most importantly, avoid handing out personal information online.