Sell Us Your Hacker Account, Admins Paid Extra — SYS Initiative Says
Hacker forum accounts wanted in exchange for crypto.
Criminal hackers are known for their ingenuity, constantly evolving and coming up with new ways to compromise your systems, accounts and data. Be that by way of bypassing Windows Defender security controls, stealing passwords by way of your GPU, or even employing automatic password hacking machines, they are ceaselessly shaking the infosecurity tree and seeing what falls out. Fighting fire with fire is often talked about within the cybersecurity industry as being a bad thing, the so-called hacking back attacks that can create more problems than they solve, but that's not always the case. What if you could get your threat intelligence right from under the noses of the hackers in the very forums they inhabit and where they discuss tactics, techniques and procedures? Welcome to the world of the SYS Initiative, which aims to do just that.
Cybercrime forums exist on the dark web, the deep web, within hidden group chats, even sometimes on the clear web itself. These are the places where you will find millions of leaked X user records, 2FA bypassing cookies for sale, and ransomware groups recruiting affiliates and selling the latest attack exploit kits. 'These are the parts of the web where people go searching for information that isn't available through a regular Google search,' Threat Intelligence specialist Prodaft said as it launched a new April 17 project called the SYS Initiative. SYS, shorthand for sell your source, promises pretty much what it says on the tin.
For threat intelligence to be truly valuable, it requires visibility into the very heart of the infrastructures used by cybercriminals. That means diving deep into illicit marketplaces, the dark web, and underground hacker forums, where information that can help in the understanding of adversarial networks and provide insight into new and evolving attacks can be found. Access to these hacker hangouts is not, as you might well imagine, just a matter of completing a quick registration form. More often than not, to access forums that have any meaningful intelligence content requires an existing member to vouch for you, contacts within the criminal underworld, or something of proven value that you can bring to the table. The older and better established the forum, the harder it is to get in and gain trusted access to the levels of membership where actual cybercrime tactics, techniques and procedures are discussed.
In launching the SYS Initiative, Prodaft is looking to purchase hacker accounts for selected, established, and active cybercrime forums. To be eligible, the accounts must have been created before December 2022 and not have been actively engaged in criminal or unethical activity. 'We want to utilize those accounts for human intelligence purposes (HUMINT) and ensure we have as much visibility into the dark web as possible,' Prodaft said.
Initially, Prodaft said that it was interested in hearing from people with accounts on the following forums:
The accounts that have either operator or admin roles will be eligible for higher payments, Prodaft said. If this sounds like you, then Prodaft said you should reach out by way of ToX chat or email to tips@prodaft.com. 'We ensure secure and private communication to protect your identity throughout the process,' the company stated. 'Attackers reliably hit where defenders don't even know they are vulnerable,' Evan Dornbush, a former NSA cybersecurity expert, said. These attackers have something of a monopoly on the vulnerability and tools-related knowledge, knowledge that many defenders are blissfully ignorant of. Profit is 'engaging the community to break the attacker's monopoly,' Dornbush concluded, 'and we should all hope they are successful in this endeavor.' So, if you have an old hacker forum account and haven't been naughty with it, maybe now is the time to do the right thing and cash in while you can.
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