Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Deer.io Platform Facilitates Cybercrime: Researchers

Researchers at security firm Digital Shadows have conducted an analysis of Deer.io, a Russian website that they claim makes it easy even for less technically skilled individuals to become cybercriminals.

Researchers at security firm Digital Shadows have conducted an analysis of Deer.io, a Russian website that they claim makes it easy even for less technically skilled individuals to become cybercriminals.

Deer.io is an openly accessible platform that allows users to host their online shops for a monthly fee of $8. The service claims to have over 25,000 users who have earned a total of RUB 253 million (roughly USD 3.8 million). The shop’s terms of service explicitly prohibit the sale of narcotics, hacking software, compromised accounts, DDoS services, personal and financial information, and exploits.

However, Digital Shadows says that while the operators of Deer.io do remove certain shops (e.g. ones selling bank account and payment card data), the company believes the site’s administrators turn a blind eye to some of the activities taking place on their platform.

Active since at least October 2013, Deer.io has hosted Darkside.global, the shop used by the individual known online as “Tessa88” to sell hundreds of millions of compromised user accounts for LinkedIn, Myspace, Twitter, VK and others.

According to Digital Shadows, a majority of shops hosted on the platform specialize in social media accounts registered by bots, stolen credentials, coupons for services that provide social network followers, and accounts for banking and other services that can be directly monetized. Researchers also discovered shops offering hosting services.

The security firm said it even alerted a global airline whose user accounts had been sold on an online store hosted by Deer.io.

Deer.io handles everything one needs to run an online shop, including anonymity and security, payment services, website design, and protection against DDoS attacks, which experts believe allows even individuals with low technical skills to set up a cybercrime shop.

There are several platforms that allow users to easily set up online shops, and one could argue that any of them can be leveraged for cybercriminal activities. However, unlike those services, Deer.io is advertised on many well-known criminal forums, including Exploit, Zloy, AntiChat and Xeksek. Furthermore, researchers say deer.io operators have advised their users to advertise their shops on these sites.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

“Just when you thought it couldn’t get any easier, cybercriminals are now experiencing even lower barriers to entry,” said Rick Holland, VP of strategy at Digital Shadows. “While this trend is not necessarily new, the fact that all of these support services are wrapped into a one-stop shop marks a change. Moreover, amid constant hype surrounding the dark web, it is important to note that this exists on the surface web, and that the dark web does not monopolize criminality.”

Related: Crime in UK Now Most Likely to be Cyber Crime

Related: Cybercriminals Use New Tricks in Phishing Attacks

Written By

Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a managing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Understand how to go beyond effectively communicating new security strategies and recommendations.

Register

Join us for an in depth exploration of the critical nature of software and vendor supply chain security issues with a focus on understanding how attacks against identity infrastructure come with major cascading effects.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Cybercrime

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Cybercrime

Zendesk is informing customers about a data breach that started with an SMS phishing campaign targeting the company’s employees.

Artificial Intelligence

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 has demonstrated the potential of AI for both good and bad.

Cybercrime

Satellite TV giant Dish Network confirmed that a recent outage was the result of a cyberattack and admitted that data was stolen.

Cybercrime

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft calls attention to a series of zero-day remote code execution attacks hitting its Office productivity suite.