Cybersecurity experts have reported that they have discovered a cybercriminal who is selling CAPTCHA solving services to his clients.
Arkose Cyber Threat Intelligence Research (ACTIR) says that the Greasy Opal group is reportedly based in the Czech Republic and has been selling all kinds of software, both legitimate and pirated, for the past 15 years. However, it caught the attention of researchers with its CAPTCHA solving tool.
CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. It is a type of challenge-response test used to determine whether a user is a human or a bot. CAPTCHAs are designed to prevent automated software (bots) from doing things like creating accounts, sending emails, visiting secure websites, and the like. If you’ve visited at least one website in the last five years, you’ve probably seen a CAPTCHA. It’s usually a grid of up to nine images, asking the user to select a few that are similar. However, there are several variations.
“Remarkably fast”
According to ACTIR, Greasy Opal’s tool is a “remarkably simple, fast and flexible tool for the automatic detection of a wide range of CAPTCHAs.”
“Greasy Opal positions its service as one that significantly improves recognition speed (up to 10 times faster) and is therefore a replacement for competing CAPTCHA solving solutions,” such as AntiGate, RuCaptcha or DeCaptcher, the researchers said.
The tools that Greasy Opal offers are apparently bundled and cost $70 to obtain. On top of that, there is an additional $10 monthly subscription. Finally, those with deeper pockets can fork out another $100 to upgrade to the beta version and get all the latest bells and whistles.
A bundle containing all of Greasy Opal’s tools costs $190, with an additional $10 subscription fee. Researchers believe Greasy Opal raked in at least $1.7 million last year.