When TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. are pirated, what happens to them? If you’ve ever asked yourself this question, part of the answer is in a recent AltasVPN post (our VPN review). In collaboration with Whizcase, this VPN service provider publishes the results of a study conducted by extracting data from the dark web between January 2022 and September 2022. We remind you that the darknet is a “hidden” part of the Internet, where there is a lot of illegal business, including the sale of hacked accounts.
Darkweb Prices Revealed by Research
And it is the research published by AtlasVPN that allows us to find out at what prices our social media accounts will be sold if hackers manage to take control of them. According to research by AtlasVPN and Whizcase, here are the prices (per unit) of hacked dark web accounts: Reddit: $6 TikTok: $8 Pinterest: $9 Twitter: $10 Snapchat: $11 Instagram: $12 Discord: $12 Facebook: $14 LinkedIn : $45 As you can see, hacked accounts are worth nothing grand-thing. However, if a hacker manages to break into a large number of accounts, he can still earn large sums. Moreover, the study indicates that sales are made in bulk and it is not uncommon for a customer to purchase hundreds or thousands of accounts. And prices may vary depending on place the market where these accounts are sold. Otherwise, the AtlasVPN post explains that a LinkedIn account is more valuable simply because the network social focused on professional clientele. To protect themselves, in addition to using the dark web, marketplaces will be invite-only.
What are these hacked accounts for?
A priori, when an organization massively buys hacked accounts, it is not very interested in personal data. According to the study, hackers can turn these hacked accounts into “robots” to artificially boost a client’s social media presence. “The advantage of this method over direct creation of bot accounts is that the stolen accounts previously belonged to real people, making it much more difficult to identify social media manipulation operations,” AtlasVPN said in a statement. For example, hackers can charge $25 for every 1,000 retweets of a Twitter post. And these retweets will appear legitimate as they will come from accounts owned by real people. To increase the amount followers a Facebook page with 1,000 likes will cost $8. And have 1000 new followers on Instagram it would be $6. In addition, the client will be able to select the country of origin of these false likes or retweets by paying an additional fee. “This demonstrates the importance of being careful when viewing popular or very interesting social media content. Someone can make a profile or post extremely popular for less than $100,” the publication warns.
Will this problem end password endings?
Although accounts continue to be hacked, force is to see that today we have more and more ways to protect our identity on the Internet. For example, platforms can enable two-step verification so that your account cannot be stolen even if your password is stolen. And besides, the password is about to disappear, making our accounts even less vulnerable. Currently, Apple already supports password technology, which replaces passwords with a cryptographic key system. And Google is also gearing up to support it in Chrome and Android.
