On SpyCast: The dark web broker

When I sat down with Vinny Troia for this episode of SpyCast, both of us wearing gray and black, I could see how he would be comfortable at a screen, on the Dark Web.

He told me about how he has used both authentic and disguised accounts to build relationships with hackers around the world — even hacking his own website to curry favor. “There was a contest to hack Vinny Troia’s website,” he said.

Vinny sells the data to law enforcement and intelligence agencies, like the FBI and CIA. At the time we spoke, some of the most in-demand information was for Russian border data — a Russian airline had been hacked by the Ukrainians.

He also described getting data from Iran’s Uber equivalent and the Shanghai National Police. “It had records on almost a billion Chinese citizens,” he said. “Their full case files.” Of course that information would be intriguing to the intelligence community.

Some of the most sensitive data is not available to buy on the Dark Web, and Vinny has paid a high cost for his work. “Especially when my first book came out and my name was more out there within a lot of these underground communities, there were contests [for] people to do things to me.” They would send bullets and SWAT teams to his house, he said.

Now Vinny doesn’t attribute breaches, in an attempt to avoid retaliation. “If you want to come after me, that's fine. But there’s gonna be ten more people lining up right after me,” he said.

His new book, Grey Area: Dark Web Data Collection and the Future of OSINT, is out this October.

Episode length: 36 minutes

Listen: On Spotify | On Apple Podcasts