You could try reaching out to the supporters of Genesis Market, the formerly high-and-mighty seller of stolen data, if you feel like owning a failed darknet business. Their desire to sell their formerly valued asset for scrap appears to be growing.
According to The Record, several advertisements for the sale of Genesis have recently appeared on underground forums. The FBI deactivated the website early this year as part of an investigation that saw the arrest of numerous site administrators and users. The platform had previously been a popular location for hacking services and stolen data. The platform’s operation was effectively crippled as a result of hundreds of raids in various nations around the world and the confiscation of countless websites. You might assume that there wouldn’t be much left to sell given the size of the operation.
However, according to The Record, on June 28 a user account that appears to be associated with Genesis’ owners started commenting about the company’s sale. The user asserted that the darknet platform of the marketplace was still operable and that the FBI had only taken control of the open web domains of the marketplace. All of the illegal business’s infrastructure is reportedly included in the sale, including “a complete database (except for some details of the client base), source codes, scripts, with a certain agreement, as well as server infrastructure.”
This is comparable to Elizabeth Holmes still owning Theranos and attempting to resell it while incarcerated. Although it’s not a particularly alluring offer, you can’t fault a hustler for trying. But if you’re a potential buyer, the issues with such a purchase ought to be clear.
Nevertheless, this story is instructive as a picture of how the dark web is faring at the moment. The aggressive measures of the Biden Justice Department have contributed significantly to the true losing streak the digital underworld has been experiencing over the past few years. Despite the fact that numerous aspects of cybercrime are still flourishing (such as the MOVEit hack), a research from February revealed that darknet income flows drastically decreased following the FBI’s closure of the Hydra marketplace late last year.
One of the busiest online hubs for cybercrime until its demise was Hydra. The dark web economy looks to have taken a significant hit as a result of the government’s actions against it. Genesis’s removal earlier this year merely increased the upheaval to the murkiest areas of the internet.
Nevertheless, cybercrime never goes away; it simply changes. Cybercriminals are now moving to OMG!OMG! or Mega, two of several new well-liked dark web hubs that appear to offer many of the same services, while Genesis and Hydra may be essentially gone. The e-crime hustles will go on up until the next significant FBI bust.