According to an article by BBC News, COVID vaccines and vaccination certificates are being widely sold on the darknet.
Prices can range from $500 (R7500) and $750 for doses of the AstraZeneca, Sputnik, Sinopharm or Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Some even allow for emergency delivery with an overnight service. There are also fake vaccination certificates being sold for as little as $150.
Also known as the ‘dark web’, the darknet is a part of the internet that can only be accessed with specific browser tools. One such tool is Tor, a browser specially designed for anonymity.
Cyber-security company Checkpoint says that they have seen the number of adverts triple from when vaccines first become available, to 1200. The sources of the adverts appear to be the US, UK, Spain, Germany, France and Russia.
Oded Vanunu, head of product vulnerabilities research at Check Point told the BBC: “It’s imperative for people to understand that attempting to obtain a vaccine, a vaccination card or negative Covid-19 test result by unofficial means is extremely risky, as hackers are more interested in your money, information and identity for exploitation.”
Mr Vanunu also shared that, as part of their research, his team purchased a Sinopharm vaccine dose from one of the vendors for $750, but are yet to receive it. His team believes that this particular vendor was a scammer, but others might be selling real vaccines.
Check Point is urging countries to protect their vaccine documentation by implementing a QR code system to make forgeries more difficult.
Source: BBC News
