New breed of cybercriminal breaches organizations then sells access Entrepreneurial cybercriminals are operating as middlemen by breaching as many companies as possible and then selling on access to the highest bidder rather than infiltrating systems themselves. New research from Digital Shadows reveals that these 'Initial Access Brokers' are flourishing during the pandemic as employees increasingly log in to systems remotely. This type of brokerage has been going on since 2016, but in the last year there's been a notable increase in activity and listings. Many dark web marketplaces have reorganized to place these advertisements into dedicated sections and there are currently around 500 in a snapshot that Digital Shadows has taken of the most popular forums. Many sellers have good feedback ratings from other criminals too, indicating their claims are genuine.