Facebook are hosting dozens of cybercriminal marketplaces which sell and trade stolen good, says cyber threat security firm Cisco Talos.
This is not a new problem for Facebook. In April 2018, security reporter Brian Krebs alerted the social media site to a number of marketplaces which openly offered fraud services. Months later, Talos discovered a new set of groups almost identical to the marketplaces reported by Brian.
Cisco Talos have recently tracked 74 marketplaces groups on Facebook whose 385,000 members promised to carry out “questionable cyber dirty deeds.” The marketplaces traded stolen bank/credit card information, account credentials and email spamming tools and services.
‘Easy to locate’
Cisco Talos’ research team was surprised how easy it is to locate these cybercriminal marketplaces. A Facebooks search for ‘spam, ‘CVV, or ‘carding’ would return “outright illegal” results. They have discovered several posts where sellers were offering credit card numbers and their accompanying CVVs, sometimes with identification documents or photos belonging to the victims.
How do Facebook tackle cybercrime?
Facebook takes down groups if they have received abuse reports. Cisco Talos say they have tried this tactic. However, some marketplaces were removed immediately, and others just had specific posts deleted. The team contacted Facebook’s security team directly and the majority of fraudulent groups were deleted.
Cisco Talos say that new cybercriminal marketplaces are continuing to surface as of the date of publishing. This highlights a sheer gap between the lack of fraud regulation and the rising levels of online crime.
Last week, we have reported on fraudsters manipulating eBay’s listings to defraud customers.
