One of the scariest realities about identity theft and other fraudulent crimes is the cyber black market. The black market of the internet deals and trades in all sorts of things: real peoples’ credit card numbers, email address lists, online bank account numbers, and a variety of services offering hacking, planting of malware, and much more.
These websites are set up like any other retail website on the internet. There are the vendors – those who sell goods and services – and there are those looking to buy. One might expect the prices for these serves to be pretty hefty, but the honest truth is that they’re not. Despite the cheap prices, the internet black market still manages to be valued at around $276 million, and this number only continues to grow.
For those working hard to protect their identity and their credit on the internet, this is troubling news. Easily the most available products from the black market are credit card companies, accounting for around 30% of the transactions on these sites. This information is known to be widely available from these sites, and they are often sold in bulk. All together, it is believed that the total combined potential worth of all the stolen credit cards stands around $5.3 billion dollars. Stolen financial account information accounts for around 20% of black market operations. Together these crimes account for half of the black market operations taking place on the internet.
The people who run these black market websites span the entire globe. You might have heard about the fairly recent arrest of 28 people involved with the cybercriminal organization, ShadowCrew. These people came from all walks of life and from all over the globe. However, even though 28 people were caught, this one particular organization claims to have more than 4000 members.
Despite all of this worrying information, there is still so much you can do to protect yourself. The most beneficial step is definitely to invest in credit monitoring software. This software is dedicated solely to protecting your credit, and many come with very large insurance policies, which grants even more peace of mind when placing your trust in their services. This software scans these black markets and stays up to date with all the latest tricks and scams that aim to steal people’s information.
Prevention is the best way to act. Credit monitoring software works best when implemented early and when paired with safe internet practices. If you are looking to fortify your identity and other personally sensitive information as much as possible, look at some of the reviews we have for various credit monitoring software companies, such as CreditCheck Total.
