The Dark Web: Where stolen data becomes currency

COMMENTARY: The dark web continues to grow significantly in size and influence, increasingly becoming a hub for illicit activity. By 2022, an estimated 30,000 websites were active on the dark web, marking a 44% increase over the previous year. Daily traffic continues to surge, with approximately 2.5 million visitors as of 2023.

As we enter 2025, organizations must adopt a more vigilant and skeptical stance than ever before. Assume exposure. Assume the worst. An organization’s most valuable assets—intellectual property, customer data, and trade secrets—are likely already circulating in the depths of the dark web, putting the organization at risk of financial loss and reputational damage.

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With each passing year, more and more of our data shifts online. Naturally, as we conduct business, this data moves and disperses across various web servers, networks, applications, APIs, and systems. Unable to secure every last system the data touches, some of this information inevitably becomes exposed, often by a simple misconfiguration that leads to an easy hack. In short order, millions of dollars in IP exits the back door without notice.

Just ask the organizations hit by the MOVEit breach in 2023, where a single flaw exposed data from 77 million individuals and 2,600 organizations, including the U.S. Department of Energy. Or those affected by the National Public Data Breach this year, with 2.9 billion sensitive records leaked, impacting 270 million people. Or Ticketmaster, AT&T, LinkedIn—the list goes on.

Despite this overwhelming evidence, many remain either unaware of or indifferent to the threats posed by the dark web. Getting a clear picture of where the dark web data resides, how it works, and the costs to businesses, will dramatically change this.

Where: The marketplaces that support cybercrime

Dark web marketplaces serve as the hubs of this shadow economy, each catering to specific types of illicit goods and stolen information. Some of the most active include:

These marketplaces are highly organized, offering search functionality, customer reviews, and even “customer service” to buyers. Dark web marketplaces are ephemeral and frequently disappear because of law enforcement action or exit scams, but when one shuts down a new one rises to take its place.

What: Access-as-a-Service

Not every budding cybercriminal has the technical skills to hack organizations or build-their-own malware. As a result, the dark web also hosts thriving “Malware-as-a-Service” and “Access-as-a-Service” economies, with some threat actors selling administrative credentials or other backdoors to corporate networks to aspiring thieves.

These premium accounts command a higher price than stolen credentials or payment card details and sometimes don’t even make it to the public marketplaces, instead being sold directly to trusted buyers in private transactions. While a single set of credentials to a social media site could sell for pennies on the dollar, administrative passwords to a global enterprise system could command thousands of dollars from the right buyer. 

These transactions, conducted exclusively in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Monero, ensure anonymity for buyers and sellers alike, making this underground economy both resilient and difficult to disrupt.

For a cybercriminal, each piece of stolen data represents a tiny investment with the potential to make massive returns—and cost the victims millions in damages.

The range of stolen data available on the dark web is staggering, often including:

Cost: The price of stolen data

The price of stolen data on the dark web remains shockingly low, making it widely-accessible to cybercriminals. Basic personal information, such as names and addresses, costs just $5 to $15. Full identity profiles, known as “Fullz,” which often include Social Security numbers and birth dates, are priced between $20 and $100. Scanned passports and U.S. driver’s licenses command higher rates, at $100 and $150, respectively.

Financial data, such as credit card details, sells for $15 to $120, depending on the account balance, while cloned credit cards with PINs go for just $20 to $25. Hacked online banking logins range from $35 to $65, and compromised PayPal accounts sell for $3 to $10 each. Even hacked social media accounts, like Facebook, are listed for approximately $45. These accounts are sold in bulk, often after an initial exploit attempt by the seller, with the expectation that many of the accounts will already be shut down or unusable by the buyers.

The dark web’s thriving economy of stolen data represents a growing challenge for businesses and individuals. Security teams need to understand what they are up against and assume the worst. They also must continuously monitor assets and preempt them from ending up in the wrong hands. With billions of dollars exchanging hands, the dark web no longer hides in the periphery: it’s staring us right in the face.

Emma Zaballos, senior researcher, CyCognito

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