Friday, October 11, 2024
HomeComputer SecurityHackers Now Switching to Telegram as a Secret Communication Medium for ...

Hackers Now Switching to Telegram as a Secret Communication Medium for Underground Cybercrimes

Published on

Malware protection

Cyber Criminals begins switching Telegram for major underground communications for various cybercrimes and illegal operation since the Underground cybercrime marketplaces are continually taken down by Law enforcement.

The result of Worlds biggest Darknet marketplace AlphaBay and Hansa Taken down in last year July 2017, criminals switch the further trade and communication into a less convenient decentralized platform like Telegram.

AlphaBay Market Place was one of the well-known online darknet markets which operated on an onion service of the Tor networkIt was shut down after a law enforcement action as a part of Operation Bayonet against it.

- Advertisement - SIEM as a Service

AlphaBay took down created the biggest gap in underground crime market and the Existing marketplaces have failed to capitalize on the gaps.

A result of a seizure of AlphaBay and Hansa in Operation, vendors, and buyers who had trading with AlphaBay have looked for other platforms to continue their operation and illegal trading.

Also, former AlphaBay vendors quickly began advertising their products on other markets such as Hansa and Dream.

Also, there are new underground Marketplaces are rising due to demand for the services AlphaBay but the fact is, there are challenges with fostering trust amongst users, as well as hidden monthly running costs.

Alongside Well-known criminal sites, such as Joker‘s Stash, have adopted blockchain hosting. Another market using this decentralized technology, OpenBazaar, has experienced a growth of four thousand new users in the last four months

Rick Holland, CISO at Digital Shadows said:“Historically when popular marketplaces disappear, another leader emerges. The effects of law enforcement action are therefore relatively short-lived, becoming a game of ‘whack-a-mole’ where cybercriminals are always one step ahead. But this hasn’t happened in this case (for now) and instead they have dispersed to alternative platforms and techniques to transact online.”

Cybercriminals Shifted to Telegram

Cybercriminals have increasingly shifted towards peer-to-peer networks and chat channels such as Telegram.

Based on the last 6-month observation there are  5,000 Telegram links shared across criminal forums and darknet websites including h 1,667 were invite links to new groups.

Apart from this 743 invites observed across criminal forums and dark websites across the last six months. Telegram group chat is very convenient for cybercriminals and they adapt easily to make further communication and trading with extreme anonymity.

Often sellers will advertise their service or product on a particular forum, but rather
than communicate directly with sellers on the forum or through its private messaging service, buyers are encouraging interested parties to reach out to them directly on alternative chat networks and messaging platforms.

In this case, cyber criminals using The primary channels are Telegram, Discord, Skype, Jabber, and IRC.

Since the Bayonet operation is short living effort and since the buyers and sellers spread widely across an increasingly decentralized community, it will be more difficult for law enforcement.

Examples of Telegram channels used to buy and sell compromised accounts and payment cards

These Telegram channels used by sellers who post the advertisements of their products and services as they would normally do on a marketplace or forum. Buyers can then contact the seller directly in a private chat message and conduct the transaction using cryptocurrencies or electronic payment services.

Balaji
Balaji
BALAJI is an Ex-Security Researcher (Threat Research Labs) at Comodo Cybersecurity. Editor-in-Chief & Co-Founder - Cyber Security News & GBHackers On Security.

Latest articles

Threat Actor ProKYC Selling Tools To Bypass Two-Factor Authentication

Threat actors are leveraging a newly discovered deepfake tool, ProKYC, to bypass two-factor authentication...

Mozilla Warns Of Firefox Zero-Day Actively Exploited In Cyber Attacks

A critical use-after-free vulnerability affecting Firefox and Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) is being...

SpyCloud Embeds Identity Analytics in Cybercrime Investigations Solution to Accelerate Insider and Supply Chain Risk Analysis & Threat Actor Attribution

IDLink, SpyCloud’s new automated digital identity correlation capability, is now core to its industry-leading...

Abusix and Red Sift Form New Partnership, Leveraging Automation to Mitigate Cyber Attacks

The agreement has marked over 600,000 fraudulent domains for takedown in just two months...

Free Webinar

Protect Websites & APIs from Malware Attack

Malware targeting customer-facing websites and API applications poses significant risks, including compliance violations, defacements, and even blacklisting.

Join us for an insightful webinar featuring Vivek Gopalan, VP of Products at Indusface, as he shares effective strategies for safeguarding websites and APIs against malware.

Discussion points

Scan DOM, internal links, and JavaScript libraries for hidden malware.
Detect website defacements in real time.
Protect your brand by monitoring for potential blacklisting.
Prevent malware from infiltrating your server and cloud infrastructure.

More like this

Dark Angels Ransomware Attacking Windows And Linux/ESXi Systems

The sophisticated ransomware group Dark Angels, active since 2022, targets large companies for substantial...

Google Warns Of North Korean IT Workers Have Infiltrated The U.S. Workforce

North Korean IT workers, disguised as non-North Koreans, infiltrate various industries to generate revenue...

Russian Hackers Registering Domains Targeting US Tech Brands

Researchers are tracking a Russian threat actor deploying domains involved in crypto scams targeting...