On the darknet, Covid-19 vaccinations, vaccine passports, and faked negative research papers are for sale. Doses of AstraZeneca, Sputnik, Sinopharm, or Johnson & Johnson vaccines cost between $500 (£360) and $750. Anonymous dealers are even selling fake vaccine cards for as low as $150.Researchers claim they’ve seen a significant uptick in vaccine-related darknet advertisements.
The darknet, commonly known as the dark network, is a part of the internet that can only be accessed using some browser extensions. Since January, when vaccine advertisements first emerged, researchers at Check Point have been monitoring hacker sites and other marketplaces. They say that the amount of advertisements they’ve seen has tripled to over 1,200.
Vaccine sellers appear to be from the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, France, and Russia. Multiple advertisements in Russian Cyrillic text, as well as English, were discovered by the squad. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine costs $500, Johnson & Johnson and Sputnik both cost $600, and Sinopharm costs $750.
