Member Article

RepKnight finds over 1,400 dark web posts targeting Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Analysis by cybersecurity company RepKnight has revealed a worrying amount of content on the dark web which seems to indicate cybercriminals are planning to spread chaos on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Using the company’s dark web monitoring software, BreachAlert, RepKnight found over 1,400 posts on the dark web that mentioned potential DDOS, phishing, malware, botnet and SQL injection attacks in conjunction with ‘Black Friday,’ ‘Cyber Monday,’ ‘discount codes’ and ‘voucher codes’.

This highlights that it isn’t just retailers and shoppers who are looking forward to taking advantage of the seasonal sales. Indeed, RepKnight’s research highlighted that some cybercriminals are even offering their own version of the Black Friday sales, with posts on dark web market sites offering discounts for other hackers – such as 25% off breached credit card details.

Patrick Martin, cybersecurity analyst at RepKnight commented: “Given the huge volumes of web traffic during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales it makes sense that hackers are looking to take advantage of the extra cover that traffic provides. Attacks such as this are usually months in the planning, with cybercriminals making use of the huge volumes of breached data that are already available.

“This information can be used to gain unauthorised access to corporate networks, make use of fraudulent credit card details, or simply scrape more customer data that can be resold again on the dark web. As a result, retailers need to take precautions in order to minimise the risk of their corporate and customer data ending up for sale on the dark web as part of an unwanted Black Friday deal. Vigilance is very much the watch word in such a busy period for the retail industry.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Patrick Martin .