Black hat hackers are one group of criminals you do not want to trifle with. Although most of them will stick to the basic cyber crimes like money laundering, hacking websites, and other petty (but still very illegal) things, that doesn’t mean they all will.
In fact, the recent dark web advertisement for illegally obtained information only furthers that observation.
After bypassing the private computer networks of several government systems, a group of cyber criminals were able to gain access to critical infrastructure targets like hospitals, financial firms, power plants, airlines, and government departments.
Of course, the cyber criminals are now offering that access to other cyber criminals via an underground dark web black market called CMarket – or Criminal Market – in exchange for bitcoin.
CMarket, formerly known as Babylon APT, is a public black market made up of several key components. First, there is the public market where the basic illegal products are available. Then there is an invite-only sub market.
Finally, there is a section dedicated to “hacker for hire” services – where those offering their services claim to hold the capabilities of breaching any private network or public network worldwide.
Although the marketplace itself is run by a combination of hackers and cyber crime groups, the main cyber criminal behind the recent breach of private networks and critical infrastructures was found out to be a state hacker working for the Chinese Communist Party.
This information was obtained by an undercover agent working for BlackOps Cyber, a globally-based darknet intelligence company that specializes in Intel, threat analysis, and digital weapons.
“Reports from BlackOps researchers revealed that the main culprit appears to be a state hacker who also happens to be working for the Chinese Communist Party. He conducts his business for the Chinese regime in his regular work and then sells the data obtained from several companies, governments, and other targets on the darknet market to various buyers.”