What is “Telegram” and why is it one of the primary hubs for Cybercriminals?

Max Moody
HackerHub
Published in
3 min readApr 13, 2022

What is Telegram?

Telegram is on the surface just a cross-platform instant messaging service with a large focus on privacy. It has been known as a very trust worthy service and has a large amount of its source code open source. Telegram states on their website that they are fast, powerful and secure which has resulted in them becoming one of the leading instant messaging services preferred by people with a desire for privacy.

Telegram Logo

Why is Telegram abused?

Now that you know the premise of Telegram and what it is on the surface level, you may be wondering why this service could be abused.

The main way the service is abused is due to the fact that Telegram has a huge focus on their privacy aspects. While great on the surface, through having these privacy features this allows people with malicious intent to easily slip under the radar much more simply than they would have to with a more mainstream service such and Snapchat or Instagram.

Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash

How is Telegram abused?

Due to the fact that black hat hackers can go under the radar much easier through the use of Telegram, quite a few of illegal services are ran on there. These services can range from DDoS attacks, the sale of stolen credentials, the sale of stolen accounts and much, much more. Due to the privacy aspects of telegram these services basically go unmoderated and can end up lasting potentially years without any punishment from law enforcement. Due to these simple facts Telegram has become one of the primary hubs for black hat hackers and other online cyber criminals.

In Conclusion:

Telegram is an amazing application which provides safe, secure communications between individuals with a large focus on the aspects of privacy. It is a same these cyber criminals decide to abuse the software in order to hide away from law enforcement as long as they can. Thankfully, law enforcement has other ways of finding these people so through just using Telegram they aren’t completely safe! I recommend you give Telegram a try as it is an amazing piece of software for communicating with people, it’s just a shame it is abused so much. Thank you for reading and stay safe!

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

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Max Moody
HackerHub

Aspiring Cyber Security professional looking to make a difference.