Examine our research from the last year in the ReliaQuest 2024 Annual Cyber-Threat Report
Reduce Alert Noise and False Positives
Boost your team's productivity by cutting down alert noise and false positives.
Automate Security Operations
Boost efficiency, reduce burnout, and better manage risk through automation.
Dark Web Monitoring
Online protection tuned to the need of your business.
Maximize Existing Security Investments
Improve efficiencies from existing investments in security tools.
Beyond MDR
Move your security operations beyond the limitations of MDR.
Secure with Microsoft 365 E5
Boost the power of Microsoft 365 E5 security.
Secure Multi-Cloud Environments
Improve cloud security and overcome complexity across multi-cloud environments.
Secure Mergers and Acquisitions
Control cyber risk for business acquisitions and dispersed business units.
Operational Technology
Solve security operations challenges affecting critical operational technology (OT) infrastructure.
Force-Multiply Your Security Operations
Whether you’re just starting your security journey, need to up your game, or you’re not happy with an existing service, we can help you to achieve your security goals.
Detection Investigation Response
Modernize Detection, Investigation, Response with a Security Operations Platform.
Threat Hunting
Locate and eliminate lurking threats with ReliaQuest GreyMatter
Threat Intelligence
Find cyber threats that have evaded your defenses.
Model Index
Security metrics to manage and improve security operations.
Breach and Attack Simulation
GreyMatter Verify is ReliaQuest’s automated breach and attack simulation capability.
Digital Risk Protection
Continuous monitoring of open, deep, and dark web sources to identify threats.
Phishing Analyzer
GreyMatter Phishing Analyzer removes the abuse mailbox management by automating the DIR process for you.
Integration Partners
The GreyMatter cloud-native Open XDR platform integrates with a fast-growing number of market-leading technologies.
Unify and Optimize Your Security Operations
ReliaQuest GreyMatter is a security operations platform built on an open XDR architecture and designed to help security teams increase visibility, reduce complexity, and manage risk across their security tools, including on-premises, clouds, networks, and endpoints.
Blog
Company Blog
Case Studies
Brands of the world trust ReliaQuest to achieve their security goals.
Data Sheets
Learn how to achieve your security outcomes faster with ReliaQuest GreyMatter.
eBooks
The latest security trends and perspectives to help inform your security operations.
Industry Guides and Reports
The latest security research and industry reports.
Podcasts
Catch up on the latest cybersecurity podcasts, and mindset moments from our very own mental performance coaches.
Solution Briefs
A deep dive on how ReliaQuest GreyMatter addresses security challenges.
White Papers
The latest white papers focused on security operations strategy, technology & insight.
Videos
Current and future SOC trends presented by our security experts.
Events & Webinars
Explore all upcoming company events, in-person and on-demand webinars
ReliaQuest ResourceCenter
From prevention techniques to emerging security trends, our comprehensive library can arm you with the tools you need to improve your security posture.
Threat Research
Get the latest threat analysis from the ReliaQuest Threat Research Team. ReliaQuest ShadowTalk Weekly podcast featuring discussions on the latest cybersecurity news and threat research.
Shadow Talk
ReliaQuest's ShadowTalk is a weekly podcast featuring discussions on the latest cybersecurity news and threat research. ShadowTalk's hosts come from threat intelligence, threat hunting, security research, and leadership backgrounds providing practical perspectives on the week's top cybersecurity stories.
March 26, 2024
About ReliaQuest
We bring our best attitude, energy and effort to everything we do, every day, to make security possible.
Leadership
Security is a team sport.
No Show Dogs Podcast
Mental Performance Coaches Derin McMains and Dr. Nicole Detling interview world-class performers across multiple industries.
Make It Possible
Make It Possible reflects our focus on bringing cybersecurity awareness to our communities and enabling the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.
Careers
Join our world-class team.
Press and Media Coverage
ReliaQuest newsroom covering the latest press release and media coverage.
Become a Channel Partner
When you partner with ReliaQuest, you help deliver world-class cybersecurity solutions.
Contact Us
How can we help you?
A Mindset Like No Other in the Industry
Many companies tout their cultures; at ReliaQuest, we share a mindset. We focus on four values every day to make security possible: being accountable, helpful, adaptable, and focused. These values drive development of our platform, relationships with our customers and partners, and further the ReliaQuest promise of security confidence across our customers and our own teams.
More results...
It’s no secret your personal information and data is valuable to cybercriminals, but is there more of a market for certain types of data than others? During our research into criminal forums and marketplaces, it’s never surprising to see personal data on sale, be it payment card details, social security numbers, compromised accounts or databases. So how common is the trade of these types of data, and how do they compare to each other in terms of how frequently they advertised? To establish some indication of this, we ran searches for keywords and phrases on over 300 criminal locations. The results of which are shown in Figure 1.
The graph shows that the discussion of payment card details is considerably more frequent than the other data types. This is not to say that the number of mentions in the graph directly translate to the number of payment card details being sold, but I would argue that it highlights how frequently this data is traded, sold and posted to criminal forums and marketplaces. There are a number of possible explanations for this, but I would say that credit card details can be easily monetized by cybercriminals, which in turn increases the demand for this type of information. This is evident through the large number of clear and dark web sites dedicated to the sale of payment card details, called automated vending carts (AVCs), examples of which include Rescator and Bestvalid. Quite simply, there is readily accessible money behind a compromised payment card details, while monetizing a social security number, account or a database can take a lot more time and effort.
Further contributing to the overwhelming disparity between discussions of payment card details and the other highlighted commodities could be the relatively large number of methods by which they can be compromised. For instance, it’s possible for attackers to use physical skimming devices, point of sale malware, keyloggers, phishing pages and other forms of social engineering and even data breaches to steal or acquire compromised payment card information. These factors are all likely to contribute to the number of payment card details available on criminal forums and marketplaces.
While our findings relating to keywords cannot be used to quantify the number of payment card details, or indeed other commodities, being sold on criminal locations, the findings do provide insight in to how popular each type of data is. Research such as this helps us to understand the state of the cybercriminal marketplace, including what cybercriminals can most easily obtain, and what is likely to be perceived as the most profitable commodity. Developing this understanding in turn enables us to develop a stronger appreciation of the cybercrime ecosystem, which helps develop our appreciation of a threat actor’s environment.