Hackers Exchange Information about Car Drivers for BTC

The criminals have made a database of almost one hundred and thirty million car owners from Russia. More than that, they are willingly sharing and exposing the information on the darknet. Anyone interested in this sort of data can purchase it for around two thousand nine hundred USD. If converted in Bitcoin, that would be 0.3 BTC.

Bitcoin is the main cryptocurrency, which cybercriminals use to perform all sorts of illicit activities. As a rule, it is not clear who those hackers are and how they gain access to private information. They stay anonymous and unknown to the buyers, operators, and authorities. Recently, hackers have succeeded in stealing names, addresses, and phone numbers belonging to more than one hundred and twenty-nine million car drivers residing in Russia. Those who need this information can purchase it using BTC. The data is available on the darknet.

Information Included in the List

The endless list of personal data includes the most essential information. There one can see the full names of the car owners. The criminals reveal the owners’ passport numbers and addresses. Besides, there are a lot of additional details about the drivers. The local news agencies have announced the news and warned the population about the possible risks and dangers that the leaked data can cause.

According to experts, this kind of information could have leaked from the authorities and governmental organizations. Also, administrations and ministries are responsible for the issue. The country’s patrol jurisdiction is investigating the case to detect the leak and find the people who had access to the data and shared it with the hackers. Stealing data from official institutions is not that simple and there must have been people working in those institutions who sold information to the cybercriminals.

The RBC agents report that the criminals sell private information for cryptocurrency. The same information is available on Vedomosti, the Russian business daily. According to the journalists and officials investigating the matter, the hackers can offer to purchase even exclusive information for over fourteen thousand USD, which equals 1.5 Bitcoin.

Prevention and Security Issues

Selling personal data has always been popular among cybercriminals who try to make easy money by offering other people’s passport numbers, telephones, and home addresses. This illicit activity occurs on darknet markets. The cryptocurrency flows were twice as high as they were in 2018. Since 2019 the number of crimes committed online has also increased since 2016.

Most of the stolen data is available on the darknet. Cybercriminals sometimes offer it for free and do not hope for a reward. Last month criminals were offering more than half a million accounts of the well-known platform Zoom. Anyone could buy and enjoy an account for as little as one penny.

Although officials across the globe are fighting the darknet market, in some cases it is difficult or even impossible to prevent leakage of information. The worst part of the issue is that crypto market hacks negatively affect the rate of crypto. It is hard to restore the lost reputation and, as we see, besides stealing money, hackers do lots of bad by stealing and selling all sorts of data. All this makes the wider population think that the crypto industry is not a secure and safe business. Gaining trust and respect is very hard. It takes minutes to ruin something worthy, but it requires months and years to restore and fix the problem.