- Facebook has confirmed that hackers have compromised almost 30 million private accounts.
- Hacked information were published on sale for cryptocurrency via dark web.
- The value of stolen sensitive private data is estimated to worth a minimum of $150 million.
Cryptocurrency has been well known for its involvement in dark web and has again proved that, it is hard to control them due to its pseudonymous nature. The anonymity in crypto-ecosystem has continually being utilized by hackers to make fortunes in various security breaches.
Facebook Security Breach
2018 has been a rough year for the social media giant - Facebook and the recent data breach has added insult to its injury. Facebook recently suffered a major security breach which helped the attackers to access the sensitive information of users. Facebook has confirmed that this attack has exposed private information of almost 30 million accounts to hackers.
The substantial security breach in the company's history has made hackers to access contact numbers and email ids of almost thirty million FB users. Around 14 million of the victims are under much severe threat since their relationship status, the area they live in and part of their search history has been exposed.
With respect to those 14 million users, the following are the details which are are leaked:
username, gender, locale/language, relationship status, religion, hometown, self-reported current city, birthdate, device types used to access Facebook, education, work, the last 10 places they checked into or were tagged in, website, people or Pages they follow, and the 15 most recent searches
- Facebook said
Hacked INFO On Sale for Cryptocurrency
With Facebook making valiant efforts to scrutinize the attack on one end, on the other side, the stolen sensitive information is reportedly sold on dark web in exchange of cryptocurrencies. Based on the reports of Independent, these information are being sold in the range of $3 to $12. Payment is done in the form of cryptocurrencies which helps the hackers by not revealing their identities.
The hacked accounts are sold for virtual currencies in the dark web marketplace known as Dream Market. Bitcoin (BTC), Monero (XMR) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) are frequently used compared to other available crytpocurrencies. It appears that the seller has removed the sale listing from dark web recently, but the value of the stolen data is estimated to worth between $150 million to $600 million.
The use of cryptocurrency in this incident has been evidently noticed and has thrown a severe warning to regulators across the world in the crypto-ecosystem. The recent tendency to global sell-off of cryptocurrency is due to the panic in the minds of crypto-investors, as they feel that severe actions might be taken to curb the crypto industry.
The use of cryptocurrency in this incident has been evidently noticed and has thrown a severe warning to regulators across the world in the crypto-ecosystem. The recent tendency to global sell-off of cryptocurrency is due to the panic in the minds of crypto-investors, as they feel that severe actions might be taken to curb the crypto industry.