Author: Emily Wilson / Source: The Next Web
When was the last time you got a data breach notification, a letter in the mail about a potential compromise, or an email triggering a password reset on one of your accounts?
What about your kids?
When it comes to data breaches, we almost exclusively focus on adults.
It’s automatic, instinctual: compromised data impacts customers, consumers, employees, and executives. We immediately assume they must be adults.Unfortunately, that’s not the case — far from it.
A concerning trend
In my role as a security researcher, stolen identities and compromised payment cards are just a normal part of the workday. Criminal marketplaces hidden away on the dark web have entire economies devoted to buying, selling, and leaking stolen information — it’s a full time job for cyber criminals, and they’ve built entire ecommerce platforms to keep up with it.
I’m used to stolen data. It’s everywhere. It doesn’t surprise me.
Recently, however, I’ve seen slow traction around a new trend: advertisements for compromised data belonging to children. Child data isn’t popular on the dark web. In fact, it’s almost entirely unheard of. Fraudsters are in business to make money, and in most cases that involves stealing and exploiting information from people who have money and who transact in the world — namely, adults.
That’s starting to change.
The first red flag appeared in early 2016. A single ad appeared on a major dark web market, advertising “Child SSNs” packaged with parent information. Children’s Social Security numbers, served up in a convenient family pack, all for the low price of $10. It was a strange and unusual apparition at the time, and I wrote it off as a fluke.
Then, nearly a year later in late 2017, another listing appeared. This time from a different vendor, on a different market, with targeted advertising: “infant fullz,” the listing read, “get em before tax season [sic].” Fullz is slang for a full identity kit, a designation that the data contains everything a fraudster needs to steal an identity: name, address, account credentials, payment card data, answers to security questions, etc. Infants, mere weeks or months old, have less data than adults, but they still have enough information for cyber criminals exploit.
Two advertisements is concerning. Three is a trend.
The third listing appeared just a few months ago, near the end…
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