Darknet drug bazaars borrow tactics from ransomware vendors stealth market has begun blackmailing all sellers and buyers, threatening to publish the cryptocurrency transactions and chats of users who refuse to pay fees of $100 to $20,000. Stealth market administrators reportedly perpetrated an “exit scam” that prevented users from withdrawing millions of dollars’ worth of funds from the platform. The audacious mass extortion attempt occurred just days later.
There is currently a ransom message on the stealth market homepage.
In the past 24 hours, Incognito Market’s homepage was updated with a ransom message from its owner stating that they would soon publish the purchase records of sellers who refused to pay in order to keep the records confidential.
“We have one last nasty little surprise for you,” the message to stealth market users reads. “Over the years, we’ve accumulated a laundry list of private messages, transaction information, and order details. You’d be surprised how many people rely on our Auto-Encryption feature. BTW, your messages and transaction IDs are never actually deleted after “expiration”… surprising! Regardless, if anything were leaked to law enforcement, I don’t think anyone would be wrong. “
Incognito Market said it plans to release a full dump of 557,000 orders and 862,000 cryptocurrency transaction IDs by the end of May.
“Whether you and your clients’ information is on this list is entirely up to you,” advises Stealth Administrators. “Yes, this is extortion!!!”
The ransom message includes a “Payment Status” page that lists the darknet market’s top vendors by name and says at the top “You can see below which vendors care about their customers.” Names in green are said to correspond to Users who have chosen to pay.
The “Payment Status” page set by the stealth market ransomware.
We will release a complete dump of 557k orders and 862k encrypted transaction IDs at the end of May, whether you and your clients’ information is in that list is entirely up to you. Yes, this is extortion! ! ! !
Incognito Market said it plans to open a “whitelisting portal” for buyers to have their transaction records removed “within a few weeks.”
The massive extortion of stealth marketplace users comes just days after a large number of users reported that they could no longer withdraw funds from their buyer or seller accounts.Cryptocurrency-focused publications Cointelegraph.com According to reports on March 6, Incognito is defrauding users of their Bitcoin and Monero deposits through fraud.
CoinTelegraph noted that Incognito market administrators initially lied about the situation and blamed users’ difficulties in withdrawing funds on recent changes to Incognito’s withdrawal system.
Stealth Markets deal primarily in drugs, so many users may now be worried about being exposed as drug dealers. Creating a new account on Incognito Market will see an ad for 5 grams of heroin for $450.
New Incognito Marketplace users will see an ad for $450 worth of heroin.
The double whammy now being hit on stealth market users is somewhat similar to the double extortion technique used by many modern ransomware groups, in which the victim organization is hacked, sensitive information is stolen, and then two separate ransom demands are made: one One is in exchange for the digital keys needed to unlock the infected system, and the other is to ensure that any stolen material will not be published or sold and will be destroyed.
Incognito Market prices its ransoms based on a supplier’s position or “tier” in the market. Tier 1 providers are said to be able to have their information removed by paying a $100 fee. However, larger “tier 5” suppliers are required to pay US$20,000.
Examples of similar darknet market exit scams have abounded in the past, and they tended to end up happening on all darknet markets that were not seized and shut down by federal investigators, said Brett Johnson. Years ago.
“Shadowcrew was a precursor to today’s darknet markets and laid the foundation for how modern cybercrime pipelines operate to this day,” Johnson said. “The truth about darknet markets? All of them are exit scams. The only question is whether law enforcement can shut down the market and arrest its operators before an exit scam occurs.”
