1 2 Executive Summary
Trade of stolen credentials affects real life
The cyberattack on the American oil infrastructure company, Colonial Pipeline,
occurred in 2021 due to a single compromised password. The compromised
password was possibly observed on the Dark Web and was used through a virtual
private network account to gain entry to Colonial Pipeline’s network. The billing
system was compromised and nearly 100 gigabytes of data were stolen. The
pipeline was shut down as a precaution due to the concern that the attackers had
obtained data that would allow them to carry out further attacks on vulnerable
parts in the system. The fuel shortages affected the flight schedules in the
Charlotte Douglas International Airport and in at least five other airports directly
serviced by the pipeline. The average fuel prices rose to the highest since 2014
following the shortage, and $4.4 million was paid as ransom
2
.
One of these markets, Genesis Market, had been linked to several breaches,
including Electronic Arts (EA), the video game publisher. In this instance, the hacker
exposed sensitive data and the source code of FIFA 21
3
. The hacker admitted he
purchased the login credentials for EA’s Slack account for $10 and then tricked EA’s
IT support into granting him access to the company’s internal network
4
.
In this report we investigate the markets from a macro level. We start by
examination of the top four markets, the volume of each, the infostealers used
in these markets. We continue with research of the top companies from four
selected sectors, banking, telecommunication, government, and energy, from
20 different countries, primarily in Europe.
1
Of data
stolen
100GB
Million
ransom
4.4$
Flights were
rejected
Fuel prices
have risen
Password
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/genesis-cybercriminal-market-ransomware/
https://www.reuters.com/business/colonial-pipeline-ceo-tells-senate-cyber-defenses-were-compromised-ahead-
hack-2021-06-08/
https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7b3jm/genesis-market-buy-cookies-slack?utm_source=motherboard_twitter
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4
The Rise of Dark Web Botnet Marketplaces