Categories: Cyber CrimeSecurity

The rapid growth of the Darknet black markets

The Digital Citizen’s Alliance provided an updating to the study which analyzes online black markets, focusing on the sales of illegal drugs.

The cybercrime ecosystem has no limit, it is a prolific industry that evolves with time and is always full of new players as reported in a recent report published by the Digital Citizen’s Alliance. The study analyzed the online black markets focusing monitoring sales of illegal drugs on the Darknet.

After the seizure of Silk Road operated by the FBI, Agora has assumed a predominant position on the online black market together with the new version of the popular website Silk Road 2.

The investigators discovered that the total amount of drugs sold in the various black markets is greater than 16,000 items, the document also proposes data from smaller black markets and new marketplaces.

The document highlights a homogeneous growth of new marketplaces

“Illegal drug sales have moved out of the poorly lit alley and into an equally shadowy, dangerous place – the Darknet. ” “Digital Citizens Alliance investigators track the numbers of illegal and dangerous drugs found on the most popular Darknet Marketplaces. The first report, “Busted, but Not Broken: The State of Silk Road and the Darknet Marketplaces, was published in April 2014. Below is the latest listings on the sites we looked at last April as well as a few others that have joined the list.” states the report.

The rapid rise of the Agora black market was advantaged by problems faces by other marketplaces, beginning on December 9, Silk Road 2.0, Pandora Openmarket, and Tormarket were hit by DDOS attack that shut down access to the websites.  The Pandora Openmarket also suffered a serious hack which causes the loss of a substantial amount of bitcoin.

Agora and Evolution Marketplace have enjoyed tremendous growth with Agora “primed to overtake Silk Road 2.0 as the largest Darknet Marketplace based on total number of drugs listed,” the report said.”

 

The updating to the previous study of the Digital Citizen’s Alliance on the evolution of the black markets was issued on August 22, 2014, the investigator also observed the shut down of Dark Bay marketplace and the born of a new website, the Andromeda Market, which has been characterized by a large growth. Within the new black markets Cloud 9 and Hydra Marketplace are the two marketplaces with the greatest growth.

[adrotate banner=”9″] [adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Black market, cybercrime)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

Recent Posts

Cisco addressed high-severity flaws in IOS and IOS XE software

Cisco addressed multiple vulnerabilities in IOS and IOS XE software that can be exploited to…

4 hours ago

Google: China dominates government exploitation of zero-day vulnerabilities in 2023

Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) and Mandiant reported a surge in the number of actively…

10 hours ago

Google addressed 2 Chrome zero-days demonstrated at Pwn2Own 2024

Google addressed two zero-day vulnerabilities in the Chrome web browser that have been demonstrated during…

22 hours ago

INC Ransom stole 3TB of data from the National Health Service (NHS) of Scotland

The INC Ransom extortion group hacked the National Health Service (NHS) of Scotland and is threatening…

1 day ago

CISA adds Microsoft SharePoint bug disclosed at Pwn2Own to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) adds a Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability disclosed at the…

1 day ago

The DDR Advantage: Real-Time Data Defense

This is the advantage of Data Detection and Response (DDR) for organizations aiming to build…

1 day ago

This website uses cookies.