21 April 2015

DIGITAL ‘ARMS TRADE’ FLOURISHING IN THE ‘BACK ALLEYS OF CYBERSPACE; NEW DARK WEB MARKET IS SELLING ZERO-DAY EXPLOITS TO HACKERS — A PLACE WHERE A ‘DR. NO IN CYBER SPACE MAY EMERGE

By RC Porter 
April 18, 2015 

Andy Greenberg, writing on the April 17, 2015 edition of Wired.com, warns that hackers are getting new weapons for their cyber space arsenal, as a Dark Web Market is selling zero-day exploits to hackers. “Hackers for years have bought and sold their secrets in a de facto gray market for zero-day exploits — intrusion techniques for which no software patch [currently] exists. Now,” Mr. Greenberg warns, “a new [digital] marketplace hopes to formalize that digital arms trade…in setting where it could flourish: under cover of the Dark Web’s anonymity protections.”

“Over the last month,” Mr. Greenberg notes, “a dark net marketplace calling itself TheRealDealMarket has emerged; focusing on brokering hackers’zero-day attack methods. Like the Silk Road and its online black-market successors, TheRealDeal uses the anonymity software Tor and the digital currency Bitcoin — to hide the identities of its buyers, sellers, and administrators. But. while some other sites have sold only basic, low-level hacking tools, and stolen financial details, TheRealDeal’s creators say they’re looking to broker premium hacker data…like highly sought after zero-days, source code, and hacking services. In some cases, these are offered on an exclusive, one-time basis.”

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