DARK WEB MARKET: SMART DECEPTION POINT SET UP BY VENDORS
Purchasing anything from Dark Web is always a mounting pressure due to various factors such as:- Market Exit Scam, Receiving mediocre quality products, getting duped for the ordered product, Vendor Disappearance, Get Busted by the Feds etc.
New Dark Web Market always gets launched within a limited time span with security features implemented such as PGP Signature for Users, 2FA for Account Security, Acceptance of XMR and ZCash(over BTC), ESCROW facilitation, Stable Mirror URLs (in case the main URL gets DDoS’d), Support for Cold Wallet, MultiSIG, 24/7 Support via Dread, Dark.fail tie-up, Publishing Scammer/Banned Member List etc. All these factors solidifies the trust level of regular Dark Web users once again, which prompts them to try out the new markets.
But still, customers still gets defrauded and the Scam Racket continues to get profiteered!
There are a group of Scammers on every Dark Web Markets who sells the open-sourced or Free offensive/testing products such as RATs, Botnet Log Files, Crypters, VPN products, Ransomwares or Malwares for relatively-less price on Dark Web in order to stay under the Radar. Scammers do not charge these products for a higher-price intentionally as it may be an attention grabbing pointer and brings them to the limelight on Dark Web. Hence, the tiny tradings happening in these markets often goes unnoticed.
It is casual to pay for the product by the Dark Web navigators when they come across a cheap product with astounding features or leaked large databases, without cross checking whether the same is being available on the Surface Web. This character of regular users are being exploited by shady vendors for a longer time on various platforms with the same monikers.
Here, we are going to focus on such vendors from popular Dark Web Markets (ATTOW).
Note:- We would be only focusing on the digital products that are popular and are readily available on the open internet. Let’s focus on the new markets as Empire is being continuously targeted (by feds) and many users are suspecting the next Exit Scam would be Empire.
CASE 1: WHITE HOUSE MARKET
This is a new market launched in the early 2020 which only accepts XMR (Monero) as its primary payment. It is also notable that the market had crossed 60,000 Members with more than 15,000 product listing, making it as one of the fastest growing customer base in a short time frame. The market had also announced bug bounty program to beef up the security.
Let’s look into some of the shady vendors from this marketplace…
Vendor: eucarder
Price: $15
Ares RAT :- Is being active since 2017 is publicly available on GitHub and Deep Web forums which is put on sale in Dark Web Market.
Ardamax: Is a free keylogger (and paid) which is available for free from a dedicated site, shared in Mega.
Vendor: g3cko
Price: $2
Vendor: cicinaty
Price: $5
DroidJack is available for free on Mega and the paid versions (cracked) of the same are being available on various deep web forums.
Vendor: topvendor
Price: $ 24
Vendor: bigone1
Price: $1
Vendor: topvendor
Price: $2.16
It is also notable that the Azorult Malware is being used in a malvertizing campaign against ProtonVPN.
CASE 2: SQUARE MARKET
Square Market is a new player in the Dark Web Marketplaces, which got launched in January 2020. Like other markets, Square is a marketplace that sells a wide range of products from Cannabis to Counterfeit software products. The market accepts payment in BTC and XMR.
On a shallow search, it is found that the Market is making use of Ambassador — which is an open source Kubernetes-native API Gateway with Layer 7 Load balancer, built on Envoy Proxy.
Let’s look into some of the shady vendors from this marketplace…
Vendor: randomerrorgenerator
Price: $.399
Vendor: TheShop
Price: $1.99
Vendor: TheShop
Price: $1.99
Vendor: randomerrorgenerator
Price: $1.99
CASE 3: BIG BLUE MARKET
Big Blue Market opened in August 2019, offering a wide range of products. This market claims to store all the user information in encrypted format. Like other markets, Big Blue also preserves user’s necessary items by advertising it for sale.
Let’s check what are being offered by the vendors here…
Vendor: DrunkNinja
Price: $10.20
Vendor: CardBoss
Price: $2.02
Vendor: Cybertruck
Price:$3.99
CASE 4: VERSUS MARKET
Versus is a new Market Place with a listing of Top Vendors on the homepage, so dark web customers can directly go to the vendors (based on number of deals handled). Market accepts payment in BTC and XMR.
While checking the review for the same, it is found that the Market is being running by the same moderators who earlier ran Apollon and Nightmare which got exit scammed recently. However, there is no substantial proof to back that comment of users.
Let’s check out some of the shady vendors here…
Vendor: g3cko
Price: $2.03
Vendor: Paradoxiteren
Price: $2.02
WHY CAN’T YOU TRUST VENDORS BASED ON REVIEWS?
>>Vendor Review System: The number of dealings indicates the total deals closed by the vendor, does not represent the successful ones. This would be dangerous, if the vendor is selling the above said products to various clients as it does not raise any suspicion by the customers for a long time(as they get the “free” products post payment).
>>Moniker Takeover: Various Dark Web users hijacks the famous monikers or look-alike monikers used in a market, to mask their real identity on a new market, when it gets launched (PGP defends such takeovers).
>>ESCROW Absence: There are vendors who does not facilitate ESCROW mode but FE Mode (Finalize Early), a high chance of customers to get defrauded here.
NOTE:- The Vendor Review Discussions are purely based on the Digital Products Sale on Dark Web Markets, and does not apply for the products such as Weeds, Hashes and other consumables.
KEY-INTAKES
>>The Proprietary Products are cracked on the Deep Web (forums or Telegram Channels) and then the same are being used by the scammers to sell on Dark Web for a minimal price to evade sudden attention.
>>Many open sourced projects are being put for sale on Dark Web Markets for Little-to- Medium price range, depending on the success rate of the tool.
>>Most of the tools/databases are found on the surface web which does not require further payment unless it’s a private tool/database.
>>As financial stability is losing at the moment (due to the COVID-19 Crisis), there is a sudden influx of cryptocurrency (BTC, XMR, ETH) trading volumes.
>>This is one of the safest way of a Scam Network to generate income and can even contribute to a State-Sponsored Attack, maintaining a clean track record as customers are not getting defrauded.
Note:- The Article is purely an Individual Research and is not subjected to be used/published anywhere without the Author’s consent.
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