12_@Hardik

Dark web threats are growing increasingly more dangerous as a booming dark web
economy drives cybercrime to new heights, setting records for phishing, hacking and (of
course) ransomware. This cybercrime wave is creating additional pressure on already
overstressed cybersecurity teams. But there’s a lot of hype out there about the dark web
that’s designed to scare instead of inform. Let’s cut through the noise with some real
dark web facts.
● Dark Web activity has increased by 300% in the last 3 years.
● Over 30% of North Americans access the dark web regularly.
● In 2020, credentials for about 133,927 C-level Fortune 1000 executives were
available on the dark web
● More than 22 billion new records were added to the dark web in 2020
● Satellite affiliates of cybercrime gangs pay the boss gang 10 – 20% of the take
on each successful job
● An astonishing 25,927,476 passwords that belong to employees at Fortune 1000
companies were available readily in dark web markets and data dumps.
● About 65% of active criminal gangs rely on spear phishing powered by dark web
data to launch attacks.
● The largest credential file to ever hit the dark web at once is the RockYou2021
password leak.
● Hackers attack every 39 seconds, on average 2,244 times a day.
● 60% of the information available on the Dark Web could potentially harm
enterprises.

n addition to information, Dark Web markets also deal in other nefarious things like
criminal services, espionage, illegal collectibles or animals, human trafficking, credit
card numbers, drugs, guns, counterfeit money, stolen goods, cybercrime software,
cracked credentials and other illicit items. Cybercriminals also enjoy gambling and all
sorts of strange things are in the pot at dark web online poker games.

In a recent breakdown of activity in popular dark web forums, researchers noted:

● An estimated 90% of posts on dark web forums are from buyers looking to
contract someone for cybercrime.
● Almost 70% of dark web forum hiring posts were looking for cybercriminals to do
some website hacking.
● Over 20% were looking for bad actors who could obtain specifically targeted user
or client databases.
● About 7% of forum posts were ads for hackers looking for work.
 ● 2% of forum posts were made by cybercriminal developers who were selling the
tools

Who is Using the Dark Web & Why?

Users primarily access the dark web using the TOR browser. More than 2 million active
users connect to the dark web through the TOR browser every day.

Country Mean daily users

Russia  9982 (21.80 %)

United States  6324 (13.81 %)

Iran  3324 (7.26 %)

Germany  2096 (4.58 %)

Belarus  1791 (3.91 %)

Brazil  1711 (3.74 %)

India  1487 (3.25 %)

China  1391 (3.04 %)

United Kingdom  1299 (2.84 %)

Turkey  1019 (2.23 %)

its name connotes not just its secrecy but also the low-down dirty
content of its shadowy realms. You’ll be told that it is home to several
nefarious things: stolen data, terrorist sites, and child porn. Now while
those things may be among what’s available on the dark web, all also
are available on the normal web, and are easily accessible to anyone,
right now, without the need for any fancy encryption software.

For years there have been sites where you can instantly buy a stranger's
Social Security Number, date of birth, full name, address and phone
number for under a dollar, or others that host reams of stolen credit card
details, ripe for a fraudulent spending spree.
Terrorist forums are also hiding in full view of anyone with an Internet
connection. Regular websites allow extremist supporters and prominent
jihadis alike to communicate with one another and post brutal
propaganda videos. Al Qaeda's first forum was launched way back in
2001, and although that site was shut down, a handful of other violent
Islamic extremist sites continue to exist on the normal web and are used
heavily today. Shutting these sites down is "like a game of whack-a-
mole,"

It’s More Like a Dark Nook

What we call the dark web is tiny. The World Wide Web has swelled to
over a billion different sites, while current estimations put the number of
Tor hidden sites at between 7000 and 30,000, depending on what
methodology you follow. That's 0.03 percent of the normal web. Barely a
fraction of content available elsewhere. The collection of all these hidden
sites is not, as is commonly spouted by governments and many
members of the media, several orders of magnitude larger than the
normal web.

It’s not clear how many people access the dark web on a daily basis, but
there’s the impression that it’s a small number of individuals. The Tor
Project claims that only 1.5 percent of overall traffic on its anonymity
network is to do with hidden sites, and that 2 million people per day use
Tor in total. In short, the number of people visiting the dark web is a
fraction of overall Tor users, the majority of whom are likely just using it
to protect their regular browsing habits. Not only are dark web visitors a
drop in the bucket of Tor users, they are a spec of dust in the galaxy of
total Internet users.
It’s Not Impenetrable
Finally, the dark web is not some zone beyond the reach of law
enforcement. Although Ross Ulbricht is the most famous dark web
personality to get busted, he is far from the only one. Over 300 dark-
web-affiliated people have been arrested since 2011, according to
independent researcher Gwern Branwen. Dealers of drugs and guns,
people who order illegal narcotics, and the staff and administrators of
sites have all been successfully apprehended by police. However, this
number should be considered as the “lower-limit” Branwen previously
told me, because it only includes those arrests that are related
specifically to the dark web markets and which are publicly known.

The people who run child abuse websites or produce illegal material are
also being caught. In October 2014, a Brazilian dark web pedophile site
was seized, and 55 people arrested. Then just last month Australian
police went public about an operation that had shut down one of the
largest child abuse sites in existence. Just like in the physical world, it
turns out that some traditional police tactics, such as going undercover,
are incredibly effective against criminals on the dark web.

So What the Hell Is the Dark Web?

Of course, there is a technological space called the dark web, where the
servers of websites are hidden behind a veil of cryptography, and users
also enjoy strong anonymity protections. But that space is nothing like
the fairy tale that has been concocted around it; that of a colossal ocean
of digital stores selling exclusive products, where criminals are free from
prosecution. That characterization is not true.

Instead, the dark web is a small collection of sites that reflect the limited
number of good, bad, and downright weird humans that use it. Doctors
can give impartial advice to drug users, who come out of the woodwork
because of the anonymity awarded to them by Tor; Chinese citizens can
discuss whatever they like and circumvent The Great Firewall, and, yes,
the dark web is also used to host some seriously depraved sites, such
as extreme pornography. At the moment, the space is probably used
mostly for criminal purposes, but its relevance to the world of cybercrime
and other domains has been grossly exaggerated.

Looking beyond the scaremongering, however, the dark web actually

has promise. In essence, it's the World Wide Web as it was originally
envisioned: a space beyond the control of individual states, where ideas
can be exchanged freely without fear of being censored. As countries
continue to crack down on the web, its dark counterpart is only going to
become more relevant as a place to discuss and connect with each
other. We shouldn't let the myth of the dark web ruin that potential.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/little-known-corners-deep-web-might-
actually-like/

“The internet is the first thing that man built that humanity doesn’t understand,
the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.”

-Eric Schmidt.

History of Dark Web

In 1969, the first message was transmitted between computers connected by
ARPANET, which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency. Within a few years, other secretive networks appear alongside
ARPANET. In the 1980s, the standardization of internet created the problem of
storage of illegal data, a solution came up in the form of “data havens”. Then
peer-to-peer data transmission came, which resulted in decentralized data hubs
which could store illegal files and were password protected. In 2000, Freenet
was developed by Ian Clarke, a software that offered anonymous access to the
darkest recesses of the web. In 2002, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
released TOR, a software which concealed the location and IP addresses of its
users. Originally made for government use, protection of identities of American
agents working in suppressive countries like China, but later on, came to be
used by the common people. Wired magazine in 2005 estimated that about half
a million movies were distributed on the Darknet everyday. There was copyright
infringement of everything right from Bollywood blockbusters to Microsoft office.
In January 2009, Satoshi Nakamato introduced the world to an untraceable
form of cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. It instantly became popular with people
operating on the Dark Web as it guaranteed anonymity. Silk Road, an online
market for buying and selling of drugs on Dark Web became famous because of
an article on a blog and the value of Bitcoin tripled. In 2013, Eric Eoin Marques,
described by Federal Bureau of Investigation to be “the largest facilitator of
child porn on the planet” was arrested. FBI shuts down Silk Road and arrests its
developer and about a month another online marketplace surfaces, Silk Road
2.0.

https://blog.ipleaders.in/legality-dark-web-india/
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/dark-web-analytics-and-interesting-facts-
behind-its-anonymity/
The ‘Dark Web' is notorious for websites that host
downright outrageous content which may just push the
boundaries of any human being. We did a detailed
analysis on the Deep Web and we've gone a bit further to
shed light on the underbelly of the dark web. Users
browse all sorts of nefarious content behind the curtain of
anonymity and it has sprung up a few stories that made
their way to the surface web. We picked out 7 deep web
stories that left us shocked and terrified and we feel it
might just send a chills down your spine as well.

Live Torture Streams

There have many instances on the deep web where users

have repeatedly found terrifying live streams. Some guy
stumbled on a live stream where a girl was sitting in a
chair and commanded people from chat window to tell her
what kind of abuse she should do to herself. After many
cuts, bruises, eye gouging, the girl eventually killed herself
on the live stream.
This is not the only case where people have brought harm
to themselves on a live stream in the deep web. These live
streams are popular known as “Red Rooms” where even
ISIS has started using this platform to conduct beheadings
and murder. Unlike these people, I'm very happy watching
bubblegum shit on Netflix.
7. The Human Experiment

If you thought the Nazis were the last people to conduct

human experiments during the Holocaust you couldn't be
wrong. This website is an index which provides documents
for performing your own experiments in concentration
camps.
The website claims that apparently, they have multiple
warehouses where they perform such despicable
experiments on humans. They conduct experiments such
as injecting a pregnant woman with bleach, starvation,
radiation exposure and even sterilisation. The website
details that these humans being experimented on are
homeless people abducted for the sole purpose of
experimentation.
I think their slogan says it all “Not all humans are equal, for
some of them were born superior to others”.

Daisy's Destruction

Child pornography is prevalent in the deep web as much

as regular porn on the surface web. However, this next
case takes a bit too far. There's a snuff film of a little girl
who was sexually abused and tortured. The video was
widely distributed amongst paedophiles on the deep web
and the larger internet community got a hold of it on
popular websites like 4Chan and Reddit.
The video was made by an Australian douche bag i.e.
Peter Scully and was arrested in the Philippines on the
charge of making multiple child abuse videos.
How To Cook A Woman (Reported by reddit user
baconboyloiter)

"In CompSci, we often got bored and dicked around. One

day we ran into the deep web. The most disturbing site we
found was a comprehensive guide for cooking women.
We're not talking about a short joke here. This page had
information on what body types to use for specific cuts,
how to prepare these cuts, and how to cook the girl so she
lives as long as possible. It horrifies me that people way
worse than the freaks on Criminal Minds exist.”
The dark web is only a small fraction of the Deep
Web.

The dark web percentage in the total space of the Deep Web is approximately 0.01%.

Furthermore, many Dark Web pages are believed to be either inactive or scam even out

of that small number.

https://websitebuilder.org/blog/dark-web-statistics/