A Darknet Vendor is Selling Millions Of Stolen Bitcoin User Accounts

A darknet vendor called “DoubleFlag” is selling user data stolen between 2011 and 2017 from 11 bitcoin forums for traders and miners, according to Hackread.com. The selling price is $400 (0.3817 BTC).

The heists include:

• About 12 million data units from 536,727 MerlinsMagicBitcoin.com accounts stolen in January 2017

• 514,409 from BitcoinTalk.org stolen in May 2015

• 568,357 stolen from BTC-E in October 2014

• 21,439 stolen from BTC4Free in January 2014

• 3,153 from Bitcoin.Lixter.com in September 2014

• 1,780 from BitLeak.net in March 2014

• 28,298 from DogeWallet.com in January 2014

• 61,011 from MtGox.com in June 2011

• 34,513 from BitsCircle.com, breach date unknown

• 10,855,376 from BitcoinSec in 2014

• 3,149 from TheBitcoinShop.pixub.com, breach date unknown

Extensive Personal Data For Sale

The accounts mostly contain an email address, date of birth, username, gender, personal text number, website URL, password and location. Some passwords have been decrypted. Some use an SHA-1 hash which can be decrypted easily since Google researchers recently broke the SHA-1 web security tool.

Individuals with accounts on these forums are advised to change their passwords immediately.

Not all forums are currently active.

The same seller has also offered 68 million hacked hashed passwords of Dropbox users. In addition, DoubleFlag previously sold millions of data units from U.S. Cellular customers and 1 billion from Chinese Internet sites.

DoubleFlag buyer ratings have been positive, indicating the data has been legitimate. When the May 2015 hack occurred, the stolen data was from unknown sources.

Also read: Hacked BitcoinTalk.org user data goes up for sale on dark web

May Heist Leaked To Notification Sites

“DoubleFlag” grabbed the data it stole in May before anyone else could. That leaked data was only accessible to data breaches notification sites like Hacked-DB and LeakedSource. LeakedSource was able to crack 30,389 passwords in total.

Hackers stole and sold 427 Million MySpace passwords last year on a dark web marketplace.

In May 2016, 33 million Twitter and 117 million LinkedIn login credentials were listed on a dark web marketplace for sale.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Silkroad-Like Darknet Market, AlphaBay, Will Accept Ethereum

One of the more popular drug market, which allows anyone to buy all sorts of illegal substances over tor, surprised both AlphaBay users and the ethereum community by announcing they are to accept eth from the 1st of May. An AlphaBay moderator says:

“Following the popularity of the new altcoin Ethereum and the recent price hike showing a growing interest, Alphabay has made the decision to start accepting Ethereum for marketplace listing purchases.”

The response was mixed, at best. One AlphaBay user says “Whut? ETH? Why…” while an etherian comments: “Hmm, this seems a little out of character, I thought they were going for privacy solutions.” Perhaps summarizing the reaction, another eth user says: “I’m not sure if this is exciting or slightly terrifying from an adoption standpoint.”Eth is a permissionless currency and a multi-purpose tool. Anyone is free to use it, just as AlphaBay users are free to use the internet, computers, phones, cars. However, the addition of eth, in particular, is surprising.

Firstly, it doesn’t currently offer much privacy, something mainstream businesses have complained about. But, more importantly, the currency forked to take back stolen money and gave it to the rightful owners.

Such forking isn’t easy and comes with a cost. Eth had to spend two months of chaotic arguing, putting everything else on hold. Then, it split, leading to another month of chaos. Most see it as a correct decision, thus the currency quickly recovered and now has gained great heights, but you’d think from AlphaBay’s perspective they’d want to stay away. The move, however, shows they don’t really care much about ideology and just want something that works.

The catalyst is probably bitcoin’s current troubles which have led to high fees and long delays. One AlphaBay user, for example, says: “as a darknet user, you’d think you’d want your transactions to complete sometime this week and not cost a fortune in fees.”

Some users are concerned this may bring bad publicity, but there is a significant difference. Bitcoin’s community appeared to strongly support Silkroad back in the days, while, if eth’s community was given a choice, they’d probably rather prefer AlphaBay doesn’t accept the currency. But, it’s not their choice, just as Apple or Mercedes can’t stop AlphaBay from using their products, useful tools for ordinary people will also be useful in those corners.

For bitcoin, there’s a lesson. When even AlphaBay flips and does so to a currency that appears to not like them much, you know you have a very big problem. While for eth, whether they like it or not, this is a clear indication of considerable adoption and momentum.

Thankfully for them, such adoption was initiated by household brands, such as Microsoft, Intel, JP Morgan and even BP. It’s transitioning now to commerce – the currency had nearly 90,000 transactions yesterday moving around almost $1 billion – may be a significant moment indeed.

Image from Shutterstock.