Amidst the increasing malware and ransomware attacks, the question that comes to the mind is, how do hackers earn by stealing our data?
The answer to the question is that they sell your personal and financial information to a vendor who then uses your personal information to file false returns. Most of the hackers hack the information of the large companies that allows them to generate more revenue from multiple accounts on the same server.
Today, in this article we will be looking at six ways in which hackers monetize stolen data & make money out of it.
1. Make a Repository of the Stolen Data
Hackers instead of gathering information one by one, hack a whole repository of the data. In which, they look for user’s authentication credentials, personal information, financial information including credit/debit card details as well.
This information is stored in form of metadata by hackers that can later be used for future attacks and for money as well.
2. Sell Stolen Personal Information
Once the actors are able to create a repository of stolen data, they will package your personal information and sell it for money. These packages are sold in bulk to maximize profit and gain revenue. The more authentic and recent the information is, more valuable it is to hackers. As recent information will help them make more money.
3. Target Data that’s More Valuable & Worth It
After targeting the personal information, actors will then go through the list of collectibles that include authentication credentials, name, a/c numbers, and credit card details. They will potentially look for more money spinning accounts than the usual ones.
We can’t deny the fact that government and military addresses are much more valuable than everything else as well as organizations personal data is also more valuable to hackers.
Many people don’t use strong passwords that make it easier for hackers to hack in to the account. These types of data breaches that include malware and ransomware are very common in large organizations.
They can even sell organizations information to some other dark web organization for more money.
Also Read : Non-Financial Data That You Should Secure
4. Sell Credit Card Information
As we talked earlier, financial information is the information that is more at stake. The information of credit cards and accounts are packaged and sold in bulk to the dark web parties. Even a small kid can get his hands on the personal information in black markets.
According to an agency, brokers sell the cards to the ‘Carders’. And carders to avoid the detection go through the multiple steps to avoid it.
According to McAfee, card with a CVV2 code on the back is rated at $5-$8, and if the stolen information contains complete information of the victim then it is sold for more than $30 in the black market or dark web.
5. Sell Remaining Stolen Data in Bulk
After months of data breach, the data becomes worthless and useless. As by now, the company has most probably taken steps to fix the breach and might have restored the data they lost. This useless and old personal information is also sold in packages at a discounted price on the hidden web.
Even the little value of hundreds of packages converts to millions of dollars when calculated.
6. Receive Refund on Tax Returns
Most of the criminal organizations break stolen data into pieces. All this stolen data when completed is used to receive tax rebates from the government and tax department. They file the fraud tax return with this information and get the returns. Almost $783 million was stolen last year from the revenue department.
So, these were the 6 ways in which hackers can earn from stolen data.
Must Read : How Safe Is Your Android Phone For A Digital Transaction?
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