Cybercriminal ‘Cloud of Logs’ - The Emerging Underground Business of Selling Access to Stolen Data

In this latest research by the Trend Micro Forward-Looking Threat Research (FTR) team, we take a closer look at an emerging underground market that is driven by malicious actors who sell access to troves of stolen data, frequently advertised in the underground as “clouds of logs.” This underground market affects not just users whose credentials are stolen and sold to cybercriminal customers, but also the organizations that users are a part of, as these would have less time to detect and respond to attacks enabled by data provided by the clouds of logs.

There has been an unprecedented increase in the adoption of cloud-based services and technologies over the years. This increased adoption is prompted by companies that are adapting to evolving industry landscapes through digital transformation — a move that allows them to be more agile, scalable, and cost-efficient. However, the benefits of using cloud services and technologies are not just reaped by legitimate companies, but also by cybercriminals who keep up with the trend.