In today’s article, we discuss how millions of dollars are made on the shadow internet.
New research shows that, as with Clearnet, stolen data flows through a chain of people that consists of a supplier and a consumer. Within this chain are several large criminal organizations that operate exclusively in the segment of the shadow Internet.
If you examine this chain, you can discover who is involved:
1. Producers – they collect data or goods for further distribution to wholesalers.
2. wholesalers – they buy and sell goods in large quantities.
This scheme is provided by marketplaces on dark web. According to our expert, several thousand wholesalers engaged in the sale of data on 30 large marketplaces, receiving an aggregate income of more than 140 million dollars.
One of the largest such marketplaces was Silk Road, which was shut down back in 2013, following the arrest of Ross Ulbricht.
Vendors at the marketplaces are unevenly distributed. On average, there are 109 sellers per 3,200 merchandise items. The largest of such sites were identified: “Apollon”, “WhiteHouse” and “Agartha” – they account for more than half of all goods.
The analysis showed an active trend in the supply of digital goods, which is ensured by the shadow Internet markets. As long as hackers continue to steal company and user data with regular frequency, the market will continue to develop actively. Marketplaces in the dark web are difficult to eliminate, so their further development is only a matter of time.
