Dark web: Veteran hacker shares inside stories

People don’t really know what’s on the “dark web.” Most of them don’t always understand it. A cybercriminal talked about what it’s like to commit crimes on the dark web, a secret part of the internet where terrorists, hackers, and drug deals go about their business without being caught.

He explained how the thieves work and said that any machine that is connected to the web could be attacked.

“I’ve seen hospitals encrypt their data, leaving people with a choice: pay to decrypt the data or put lives at risk.” A man in a mask told Vice News this when they talked to him.

The dark web is a place where people can do things without leaving any tracks. Drugs and guns, among other things, are among the most-wanted items on the web.

The hacker with years of experience worried about the “major effects” ransomware could have on financial markets or on things like power plants.

Philip Ingram, a former colonel in UK military intelligence, said last year, “Serious and organised criminals use the dark web for more and more things.” They try to get kids to do things like run drugs across county lines, be used in paedophile rings, or join terrorist and radical groups. To do this, they look for kids who are vulnerable.

There are several ways to get to the dark web, like Tor and Freenet, which constantly send traffic to different IP addresses so that the person can’t be tracked. A lot of people use Tor every day.

Even though the interview is from 2021, the man’s worries are still the same. They tell us of the dark world of people whose only goal is to use the internet to cause trouble, and how they could destroy the world.

During the interview, he said, “If I wanted to get into a secure company, I wouldn’t go kick the door down.” He also said, “I would target people I know who have access, who I know bring personal devices into a building or do things near the sensitive stuff, and then I would work my way up.”

The former hacker said, “In the past, a country would have to spend millions and millions of dollars to cause trouble in a country as big as the United States. Today, all you need is a few thousand dollars, a laptop, and a couple of smart hackers to write some code and send something out.”

People call Kevin Mitnick “the world’s most famous hacker” because in 1995, he attacked 40 big companies, including IBM, Nokia, and Motorola. He took computer codes worth about $330 million and went to prison for 5 years.

After he got out of jail, he said he had “changed” and now lives as a “white hat,” which is a security hacker who does good things.

The guy in the mask said, “I used to think of myself as a black hat, but I switched to a white hat. White hats are usually hackers who follow an ethical code, try to do things that are good for society as a whole, and don’t break the law.

He said that when the West needed help fighting cybercriminals, it went to the dark web group.

Even top officials don’t know which system hackers are trying to break into. It was clear during the DarkSide hacking group’s attack on the Colonial Pipeline in 2021, which shut down the whole system. The attack stopped 2.5 million barrels of fuel from Texas to New Jersey from getting to those places.

For the system to be fixed, the hackers asked for $5 million as a payment.

InfoSecurity Magazine said that during the reporting period, sensitive data from 2,886 companies was posted on ransomware leak sites. This was a 22% rise from the year before.

This month, a top FBI official said, “We’re not just trying to attack the suppliers; we’re also trying to attack the users.” The official also said, “There are consequences if you’re going to use these sites to do this kind of thing.”

Genesis Market, an online store, was taken over by an international effort called “Operation Cookie Monster” because the site sold stolen digital fingerprints, which are called “cookies.”

The FBI said, “Genesis Market gave people access to information that had been stolen from more than 1.5 million computers around the world. This information included more than 80 million account access credentials.”

The information includes passwords for online banking, Facebook, Amazon, and PayPal, as well as digital fingerprints, which can be used to get into someone’s personal computer.

Officials from the UK’s police force said that planned searches in and around the town of Grimsby led to the arrests of about 120 people.

A senior FBI source told DailyMail that suspects were also arrested in the US as part of the bust. The official did not say how many people were arrested or what they were charged with.