Dark Web Price Index 2021

What We Found

As predicted, the Dark Web Price Index 2021 shows there is much more volume being sold now compared to last year, with fake ID and credit card vendors reporting sales in the several thousands. Not only quantity, but the variety of items to purchase has grown as well, such as hacked crypto accounts and web services like Uber accounts.

This is a vendor profile of someone selling stolen credit card data. It has accumulated more than 1,000 sales and over 600 positive reviews in just a year:

There are hundreds of vendors like the above.

With the massive influx of supply, buyers seem to be gravitating towards bigger, “trustworthy” sites, with White House Market holding the largest market share of sales. The Dark Web markets are even starting to parody traditional markets with comical offers of “buy 2 cloned credit cards and get 1 for free!!” for example.

In an effort to mitigate detection and tracking by law enforcement, the Dark Web is moving towards increased security on all ends. The markets have abandoned Bitcoin (BTC) as it is not secure, and vendors are demanding buyers to use Monero as payment and communicate only through PGP encryption.

Our methodology was to scan dark web marketplaces, forums, and websites, to create an index of the average prices for a range of specific products.

To further illustrate how this marketplace is thriving, below you can find a snapshot of a vendor profile with buyer ratings. This fake ID vendor seemingly registers sales every day:

Dark Web Price Index 2021 – Cloned Credit Cards and Cardholder Data

Despite the increasing supply, prices for cloned credit cards and associated cardholder data actually seemed to increase across the board. The price increase is most likely due to a combination of factors like the increasing risks of attaining the information, the increasing benefit for buyers to use the information, the increased quality/accuracy of the card data, or just good ol’ inflation.

Vendors of stolen credit card data tend to offer a guarantee of 80%, which means that two out of every ten cards either aren’t accurate or they have less than the advertised balance. Credit card records and cardholder data are typically sold in the format [CC|MM|YY|CVV|HOLDER_NAME|ZIP|CITY|ADDRESS|EMAIL|PHONE], the first 4 sections are card details and the following 5 sections show the cardholder information.

Updated Pricing (Oct. 2020 to Feb. 2021)

We have also includes several new “products” that weren’t covered in our 2020 version of this index.

New Products on Price Index

Many new listings of credit card details are categorized by country, which suggests where the breach took place, the accuracy of the credit card details, and the usefulness of the stolen data.

You can see that USA hacked credit card details are valued the lowest (due to high supply), and Israel the highest.

Example of stolen credit cards being sold on the dark web (vendor names have been removed):

Dark Web Price Index 2021 – Payment Processing Services

PayPal account details are easily the most abundant items listed on these dark web marketplaces, and as such they’re extremely inexpensive to purchase. The more expensive option is actual transfers from a hacked account.

As you can see in the below table, account details have dropped significantly in price, while the price of transfers have increased.

To accompany the purchase of payment processing accounts, another commonly listed item is guides on how to cash out the transfer without alerting the authorities. These guides sell for cents on the dollar, and whether they actually work remains unclear.

Updated Pricing (Oct. 2020 to Feb. 2021)

New Products on the Dark Web Price Index 2021

Payment processors have become more and more prevalent as retailers accept mobile pay and other forms of online payment. These payment processors vary in cybersecurity capabilities and insurance, so the value of a hacked account is likely to fluctuate as a result.

Example of stolen banking and payment processing information being sold on the dark web:

Dark Web Price Index 2021 – Crypto Accounts

Hacked crypto accounts seem to be one of the most valuable items for purchase. Due to the skyrocketing prices of BTC and other cryptocurrencies, hacked accounts may hold large sums of coin-based currency and cash, protected by relaxed security measures after the initial verification process.

The high-value accounts matched with abundant BTC ATMs for anonymous cash-out make crypto accounts a very valuable item for hackers.

Example listings of hacked cryptocurrency site accounts being sold:

Dark Web Price Index 2021 – Social Media

Whether it’s the increased supply of hacked information or the diminishing value of an individual hacked account, prices for hacked social media accounts seem to be dropping across all platforms. Additionally, offers to hack specific accounts or sell them were relatively scarce, but there were still some.

Given the recent increase in security measures (e.g., MFA, account locks on too many attempted passwords) implemented by social media platforms, hackers must resort to social engineering techniques to gain login credentials, which is a very labor intensive endeavor for a relatively low success ratio.

Also worth noting, the extremely low cost of social engagement (e.g., likes and follows). This just proves how easy it is for some to gain influence through social proof with just a few bucks.

Updated Pricing (Oct. 2020 to Feb. 2021)