Andy Greenberg reports:
Hackers have for years bought and sold their secrets in a de facto gray market for zero-day exploits—intrusion techniques for which no software patch exists. Now a new marketplace hopes to formalize that digital arms trade in a setting where it could flourish: under the cover of the Dark Web’s anonymity protections.
Over the last month, a darknet marketplace calling itself TheRealDeal Market has emerged; it focuses on brokering hackers’ zero-day attack methods. Like the Silk Road and its online black market successors, TheRealDeal uses the anonymity software Tor and the digital currency bitcoin to hide the identities of its buyers, sellers, and administrators. But while some other sites have sold only basic, low-level hacking tools and stolen financial details, TheRealDeal’s creators say they’re looking to broker premium hacker data like highly sought-after zero-days, source code, and hacking services. In some cases, these are offered on an exclusive, one-time sale basis.
Read more on Wired.