Cybersecurity: Data of about 6 lakh Indians is reportedly being sold online for Rs 490 each

As data-harvesting malware or bots proliferate, the data of at least 6 lakh Indians has been stolen and sold on bot markets, with the average price for one Indian’s digital identity being around Rs 490, according to cyber-security researchers on Thursday.

According to research by cybersecurity company NordVPN, India was the most affected country in the world, accounting for 13% of all data on bot markets. Bot markets are internet marketplaces where hackers sell data stolen from their victims’ devices via bot malware.

The data is sold in packets that include logins, cookies, digital fingerprints, screenshots, and other information – a compromised person’s entire digital identity. Hackers are selling camera pictures, screenshots, up-to-date logins, cookies, and digital fingerprints, and this expanding menace has already harmed five million people worldwide.

“At least five million people have had their online identities stolen and sold on bot markets for Rs 490 on average. Out of all the affected people, 600,000 are from India, making the country the most affected by this threat in the world,” said the researchers.

On the markets examined, at least 26.6 million stolen login data were discovered. 720,000 Google logins, 654,000 Microsoft logins, and 647,000 Facebook logins were among them.

Researchers also discovered 667 million cookies, 81 thousand digital fingerprints, 538 thousand auto-fill forms, as well as various gadget screenshots and webcam snaps.

“Digital bots are becoming increasingly common. They operate in fields such as customer service, search engine optimisation and entertainment. Yet not all bots may serve good intentions — many of them can be malicious,” said security researchers. RedLine, Vidar, Racoon, Taurus, and AZORult are the most common types of malware that steal and gather data. “The 2easy marketplace was launched in 2018. At first, it was considered to be smaller compared to other markets. Yet the situation has dramatically changed since then. Now, 2easy sells more than 600,000 stolen data logs from 269 countries,” said the report.

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