Tor Markets

Kaspersky’s Advanced Targeted Threat Predictions For 2021

Understanding Tor Markets

• Activity remained relatively steady over the course of the year, peaking in April.
• The deep web is about 90% of the internet, while the dark web makes up about 5%.
• Almost everything else you can imagine that’s illegal is sold in Dark Web markets too.
• No dominant international darknet market has emerged since the “voluntary shut down” of Dream Market in 2019.
• The payment is held in escrow by the site operator to discourage scammers.

The term Tor markets refers to online marketplaces that operate on the Tor network, which is designed to provide anonymity for users. These platforms enable various transactions, typically involving both legal and illegal goods and services.

How Tor Markets Function

Tor markets leverage the privacy features of the Tor network, allowing users to browse and transact without revealing their identities. This is achieved through:

There’s new R&D that we’re doing on remote inspection technology, remote gauging technology, measuring the thickness of the remaining steel. The American Bureau of Shipping dominates the global market in the classification of Floating Production. Offshore Engineer recently sat with Matt Tremblay, ABS’ Vice President of Global Offshore Markets, at American Bureau of Shipping HQ in Houston for his insights on market drivers and technical trends in this dynamic market. All material subject to strictly enforced copyright laws.Institutional Investor LLC is part of the Delinian group. Please read our Terms and Conditions, Modern Slavery Act Transparency Statement, and Privacy Policy before using the site. Marginal costs play a crucial role in cost analysis and decision-making for businesses.

Chainalysis has no responsibility or liability for any decision made or any other acts or omissions in connection with Recipient’s use of this material. Lital is a Marketing Team Leader, Storyteller, Technology Marketing Expert. She joined Cybereason as the first marketing hire and built a full marketing department. Specializing in brand building, product marketing, communication and content. How Kaspersky researchers obtained all stages of the Operation Triangulation campaign targeting iPhones and iPads, including zero-day exploits, validators, TriangleDB implant and additional modules.

• Onion Routing: Data is encrypted and routed through a series of volunteer-operated servers, making it difficult to trace.
• Anonymous Access: Users access Tor markets using the Tor Browser, which specifically designed for accessing these sites.
• Pseudonymity: Users often transact under pseudonyms, reducing the risk of personal information exposure.

The vendors openly advertised their drugs on Hydra, typically including photographs and a description of the controlled substance. Buyers rated the sellers and their products on a five-star rating system, and the vendors’ ratings and reviews were prominently displayed on the Hydra site. The global cost of cybercrime has been on an alarming rise with the estimated loss to be in billions of dollars, with some reports indicating that the overall loss could be in trillions. A large portion of this cost can be attributed to the fraud conducted due to stolen PII data, some of which we have covered in this blog. For example- In Asia, Australia has been impacted the most due to identity crimes with an estimated loss of AUD $2.2 billion annually.

Now, 10 months later, thanks in part to a tumult of takedowns and the mysterious disappearances of competing dark web markets, DeSnake’s reincarnated AlphaBay is now well on its way to its former heights atop the digital underworld. Considering the recent growth, Dark Web Markets will likely reach larger transaction volumes. In addition to illegal products such as drugs, these black markets, which are marketed in data sets, data leaks, malware, and exploits, pose a significant danger to every institution. Twenty Tor darknet markets were surveyed on 3 April 2020 to conduct a census of COVID-19 related medical products and supplies. There were 645 listings, including 222 unique listings, of COVID-19 related products across 12 markets. Personal protective equipment accounted for nearly half of all unique listings, and one third of products were antiviral or repurposed medicines.

This was an intriguing boast—a prosecutor told me it was made to gain users’ trust—but it was untrue. DarkMarket’s thirty-four-year-old founder and administrator was apparently an Australian man, who was arrested last weekend near the German-Danish border. The police referred to him only as Julian K. Shortly after Julian K.’s arrest, DarkMarket was shuttered by the German police. On the site, a graphic appeared, showing an insect with a female face—a logo for DarkMarket—underneath a flyswatter. “Silk Road Reloaded” launched today, and is only accessible by downloading the special I2P software, or by configuring your computer in a certain way to connect to I2P web pages, called ‘eepsites’, and which end in the suffix .i2p. At a macro level, I think we’re going to be supply limited over the next five years.

Despite the challenges, the ongoing efforts to combat darknet markets have had a significant impact on reducing the availability of illegal drugs, weapons, and other illicit items. Stolen identities are in big demand in darknet markets as they allow cybercriminals to conduct fraud using real identities of individuals who could have been victims to phishing/malware attacks or organizations holding PII data of their customers getting breached. Credit Score reports are one of the most highly traded PII (personally identifiable information) in the darknet markets.

White House Market is another popular market but requires you to use Monero instead of Bitcoin. To find out which darknet markets are currently popular, see Darknetlive.com or dark.fail. Both Agora and Middle Earth were accessible at the time of publication, however. Some darknet markets are also adopting new infrastructures to avoid shutdowns by law enforcement. OpenBazaar, for instance, has a fully decentralized structure, similar to the blockchain itself or the Tor web browser, that would make it impossible to take down. Users simply download and run a program that allows them to connect directly, rather than through a website.

So, if you set up your own relay, you are able to log all data transiting on your node, and thus retrieve information people have not encrypted before sending it through the Tor network. I read there also were some rumors that US governmental agencies may possibly run fake drug websites, so as to be able to get an alarm when some user was buying a too large amount of drugs for it to be his personal consumption. Dark web commerce sites have the same features as any e-retail operation, including ratings/reviews, shopping carts and forums, but there are important differences. When both buyers and sellers are anonymous, the credibility of any ratings system is dubious. Ratings are easily manipulated, and even sellers with long track records have been known to suddenly disappear with their customers’ crypto-coins, only to set up shop later under a different alias. Because although a lot of the content on the Dark Web is legal and innocuous, the privacy that proxy networks provide has also made it a tool for criminals.

Types of Goods and Services Found in Tor Markets

Tor markets host a wide array of offerings, including:

• Illegal Drugs: A major portion of transactions involves illicit substances.
• Stolen Data: Personal information such as credit cards, IDs, and accounts may be sold.
• Fake Identification: Services that produce counterfeit documents.
• Hacked Services: Access to compromised accounts or services.
• Legal Products: Some markets also feature legal items, including digital goods and privacy tools.

The Risks Involved with Tor Markets