Many COVID-19 Vaccines Are Sold On The Dark Web, The Price Is IDR 3 Million Per Dose

Ilustrasi (Image by torstensimon from Pixabay)

JAKARTA - The COVID-19 vaccine is still limitedly distributed by the government and health agencies. Given the insufficient vaccine production, this is added to the growing number of patients around the world.

So far, three brands of COVID-19 vaccines have been produced, namely Pfizer / BioNTech, AstraZeneca, and Moderna. Due to the limited number of vaccines and the high demand, many people are advertising and selling the COVID-19 vaccine illegally, such as on the darkweb.

"You can find everything on the Dark web, so it's no surprise that sellers there are trying to take advantage of the vaccination process that is being implemented almost all over the world. Over the past year, there have been many scams exploiting the topic of COVID, and many of them have been successful," he said. Kaspersky security expert Dmitry Galov in his official statement Monday, March 8.

It was explained that the majority of sellers came from France, Germany, England and the United States. The price per dose ranges from US $ 250 to US $ 1,200 (Rp.3.6 million-Rp.17 million), with an average cost of around US $ 500 (Rp.7.2 million)

Communication takes place via encrypted messaging apps such as Wickr and Telegram, while payments are requested in cryptocurrency, primarily bitcoin.

The majority of these "underground" sellers have already made between 100 and 500 transactions, which indicates that they have completed the sale and it is not clear how effective the item is.

From the information that Kaspersky has collected, there are not a few advertisements or transactions on the darkweb selling and buying doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Although no one can guarantee whether the vaccine is genuine or fake.

Kaspersky warned, if you see an advertisement about something related to COVID, pay close attention to the URL of the site you are visiting. If only one letter looks out of place, or if the regular .com has been replaced with .com.tk or something similar, it is suspected that it is phishing.

Also pay attention to the grammar and layout of sites visited and emails received. If it looks suspicious, never proceed further access.

"It is important for users to continue to be aware of any deals related to the pandemic, and of course, buying vaccines from dark web forums is not a good idea," Galov said.