The latest Whizcase review reveals that watching the latest film or Netflix series is more affordable than ever, with $100 buying a complete suite of hacked accounts on the Dark Web.
Social media accounts are the most abundantly available, with darknet markets overflowing with hacked social media profiles selling for as little as $6 per hacked account.
According to the report, there is a thriving market for hacked entertainment service accounts:
- LinkedIn account: $45
- Facebook account: $14
- Instagram account: $12
- Discord account: $12
- Snapchat account: $12
- TikTok account: $6
The majority of these are obtained through social engineering or phishing campaigns after hackers have compromised users' registration email addresses.
These accounts are typically linked to their original owners' payment processing solution, which hackers frequently compromise. The original owners have been locked out of these accounts and are unable to unlink their credit card information from them. In these cases, the only option is to cancel the attached credit or debit card.
Whizcase revealed that a hacked account from any major social media network could be purchased for $127. The cheapest is Reddit, which costs $6, and the most expensive is an Instagram account, which costs $12. LinkedIn was the most expensive social profile, costing $45.
When it comes to communication methods, hacked Gmail accounts are the most expensive, costing $45 each. This comes as no surprise given that most businesses use Gmail on a daily basis. Accounts for WhatsApp, Skype, and Telegram range from $18 to $8.
This opens the door for cybercriminals to use these accounts to reset passwords used by their original owners to sign up for various services. This could include both financial and payment accounts. According to the review, many hackers use compromised accounts to run "sophisticated bot farms" for manipulating social media engagement. The advantage is that the manipulation campaigns are much more difficult for social networks to detect.
Purchasing social media engagement is also extremely inexpensive. For only $25, one could purchase 1,000 Twitter retweets from what appeared to be legitimate accounts. Just $8 will get you 1,000 Facebook likes on a page or post. You can select the country of origin for the Likes or retweets for a few dollars more. This demonstrates the importance of exercising caution when looking at popular or highly engaging things on social media.
Keeping social media and entertainment software accounts secure, as per Whizcase, reduces social disruption, identity fraud, and outright theft. Otherwise, cybercriminals can utilize cybercrime exploits or social media campaigns to disseminate false information, defraud or rob others of money or gaming tokens, or even embezzle their identity.
