A new report claims that many young Indians are turning to the deep web for additional income.
India’s young tech-savvy population faces limited access to careers in the domestic tech sector, placing them at greater risk of being involved in cybercrime in deep web.
Although Bangalore is often referred to as the “Silicon Valley of India” due to its rapid economic growth and pace of technology adoption, unemployment remains high throughout the South Asian country, even among skilled workers.
“It gives trained programmers the opportunity to put on a black hat and turn to cybercrime on the deep web to make money,” says a new report from threat intelligence firm IntSights.
“Job growth is not keeping pace with the huge number of new technically skilled workers, and many are turning to hacking as a means of generating income,” they added.
Support fraud
According to IntSights, elements of India’s fast-growing cybercrime underground are posing as legitimate tech firms like Amazon, Microsoft or Samsung in the hiring process.
In an interview with IntSights researcher, one Indian scam center employee said that “lack of proper education” as well as job opportunities played a role in those who ended up in the scam centers.
The average income of employees of the fraudulent centers is only about 15,000-20,000 Indian rupees (US $ 200) per month, although for Indian workers this is still a modest amount.
Attackers use dark web cybercrime forums and black markets to buy stolen data, and then use that data to target victims through pre-written scams.
Fraud, fraud, extortion, drug dealing, cryptocurrency use, and Advanced Persistent Threat Teams (APTs) operating both independently and as government-sponsored organizations are commonplace in India’s dark web.