A hacker with over three decades worth of experience has shared some of the scariest things he has seen on the dark web.
While the dark web is something most people are not well informed on, there is one hacker who has been trolling the secretive server for over 30 years.
Often associated with criminal activity, the reality of the dark web is one that is often shrouded in mystery but one man has decided to lift the lid.
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Appearing anonymously in a video for VICE, disguised by a mask, the hacker revealed just how harrowing the dark web can be.
Describing his past where he used to be a malicious hacker, the unknown man revealed that he enjoyed seeing how disruptive he could be.
However, that has since all changed and he now works professionally in cybersecurity.
The man shared how he used to be a ‘black hat’, which is a term used to refer to a hacker who is not bound by any ethical code.
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But now he’s considered to be a ‘white hat’, someone who works in the field towards the greater good, often using their hacking skills to seek out weak spots in security software.
The anonymous hacker said that the biggest portion of hacking he ended up seeing came in the form of ransomware attacks.
These effectively involve hackers locking people out of their own systems, and demanding a ransom to let them back in.
That would be annoying if it was your personal computer, but as the hacker pointed out, when it’s actually the computer systems of a major hospital or some other life-saving care, it’s an incredibly scary situation.
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After all, it leaves the business choosing whether to pay a criminal or hold out and risk lives by trying to fight back.
The payments demanded are also evolving, he said, adding: “Back when it started, ransomware was charging hundreds of dollars, maybe thousands of dollars for individual targets.
“The bigger payouts that we’re talking about now are easily into the tens of millions. This last, most recent attack, they offered $70 million for the campaign key, which is the key that would have unlocked every single computer encrypted during that attack. So we’re talking high-stakes games here.”
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That’s a pretty crazy total, and shows that these ransomware attacks aren’t just niche little crimes - they’re big and organized, and all the scarier for it.