Criminals use the Dark Web to facilitate large-scale cryptocurrency theft. There are now an estimated 12,000 marketplaces and 34,000 offerings related to cryptotheft for hackers to choose from, the company said in a study. The necessary malware costs an average of USD 224 and can be priced as low as USD 1.04. That marketplace has emerged as a USD 6.7 million economy. Exchanges were the most popular target for cybercriminals, making up 27% of attacks this year.
Businesses were the second most vulnerable group, making up 21% of those hacked. In many cases, criminals hack the internal system of these companies and demand cryptocurrency as a ransom.
Hackers often demand payment in cryptocurrency yet bitcoin does not seem to be the top choice. It accounted for only about 10% of the targeted cryptocurrencies, while ethereum made up 11%. Criminals seem to prefer monero. This cryptocurrency was used in 44% of all attacks because of its privacy and its difficulty to trace compared with bitcoin. It also has relatively low transaction fees.
The US was the most vulnerable country, with 24 crypto-related attacks. China was next with 10, and the UK came in third with eight.
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