For this year, several dark web domains that trade data from cybercriminal activities have been seized and shut down by the US law enforcement agencies. Last June 7, a new announcement of malicious site seizure was published, which involved the SSNDOB marketplace – a dark web marketplace selling over 24 million stolen social security numbers.
The SSNDOB admins promoted their black market services through advertisements on different dark web forums, including offering customer support and monitoring clients’ monetary transactions.
According to DOJ, the marketplace’s admins had been utilising various strategical methods of remaining undetected by authorities. Some methods include using aliases, maintaining servers from various locations, and requiring clients to complete transactions digitally, such as paying using crypto coins.
The seizure of the SSNDOB marketplace was from the joint effort and cooperation of federal agencies from the US, Cyprus, and Latvia.
Orders to seize the said dark web marketplace were placed last June 7, which has effectively ceased and dismantled the website’s malicious operations.
After the series of seizures conducted by the authorities against several dark web marketplaces, security researchers concluded that cybercriminal activities are still widespread worldwide and pose risks to people with sensitive details uploaded someplace on the internet. Thus, everyone had been strongly advised to take measures to secure their information to prevent the chances of being victimised by such threats.
Firstly, people must not enter their sensitive identifiers on every form that requests it online, especially if those forms are not with a strong reputation. It is also vital to remember to shred or strip apart all receipts, account statements, credit offers, and expired credit cards since it is easy for cybercriminals to get ahold of them and exploit them for malicious activities.
Most importantly, establishing strong online account passwords is always recommended, alongside changing them frequently to avoid instances where threat actors have stolen your old password only to discover that the user still uses it, allowing them to take advantage.
Passwords, on that matter, must also be different among all users’ online accounts to ensure security against cyberattack threats.
