On the 11th of April, Digital Information World posted an article called “Market is Offering Access to Full Digital Fingerprints of Over 60,000 users”. Digital Information World seems to be unbiased, and uses factual information. This article dives into a report by KasperSky Labs, which is a well known antivirus/digital security company. In this report, as well as the article they speak about Genesis, which is a “dark web forum” where cyber criminals buy and sell people’s digital information, and with a specially created browser extension by Genesis, these cyber criminals can completely disguise themselves online with somebody else’s online information, including passwords and credit card details. It is also stated that Genesis has tested these masks on the top 47 digital analytical systems, as well as 283 major bank digital security systems without fail.
I believe this is one of the main things people need to worry about — online impersonation. This is a huge thing, especially when the report states that there are at least 60,000 of these “digital masks” already made. The article states that it is “high time for companies” “to upgrade the user identification mechanisms for extra protection of their users” which I completely agree with, I believe that after looking at these statistics, companies need to get working on improving their general digital security. These profiles of users are very cheap for criminals too. These profiles range from $5 to $200 depending on the information that is on the profile, but 200 dollars really is not a lot for somebody to pay for credit cards, as well as other sensitive information. This is especially cheap for how accurate the information is, because Genesis’ browser extension makes you look like the actual person, which is a really scary thing when you think about it.
Cybercrime Blog 