The Resale Cost Of Stolen Data

Crime doesn’t pay. Cyber crime on the other hand pays handsomely according to the current resale price tag associated with the data breach, which led to 4.2 million American Federal data of employees being transferred from the Office of Personal Management to as yet unknown source. Analysis has identified places within various dark net marketplaces which are reselling the data from as little as 50 cents to $10 (£6.30) Now I know what you’re thinking, “You cannot become rich over 10 bob” Very true, you can’t, But experts have placed a total value of every single piece of data which had been breached to nearer $140 million dollars (£88,186,198.86)

These so-called “sets” contain every piece of information from a particular person which includes name and birth etc. While scanning through the information it becomes clear the fly is very much in the ointment for people up to no good, at first glance you would think all these identities are genuine which they are, but if you had your information stolen you would correct this, If you had a password hacked then you would change it, this is exactly what has happened with the data. Once someone suspects they have been breached, they make plans to correct it. The odds are for every 10 pieces of information which are sold for $10 each, only one will work.

It’s shocking but not surprising that sensitive data as personal as in this case did not have a better protection mechanism, it’s also clear this data was not encrypted if criminals have had access to it. I also think companies who hold sensitive information about our identities need to invest to build infrastructure to cope with it, otherwise essentially every single person could be cloned. Only time will tell if this data breach was indeed state-sponsored or a lone wolf acting with criminal intent

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Image Courtesy of Kennisalliantie