Most Dark Web Content Is Legal and Boring
November 15, 2016
Data crunching done by an information security firm reveals that around 55% is legal and mundane like the clear or Open Web.
Digital Journal, which published the article Despite its Nefarious Reputation, New Report Finds Majority of Activity on the Dark Web is Totally Legal and Mundane, says that:
What we’ve found is that the dark web isn’t quite as dark as you may have thought,” said Emily Wilson, Director of Analysis at Terbium Labs. “The vast majority of dark web research to date has focused on illegal activity while overlooking the existence of legal content. We wanted to take a complete view of the dark web to determine its true nature and to offer readers of this report a holistic view of dark web activity — both good and bad.
The findings have been curated in a report The Truth About the Dark Web: Separating Fact from Fiction that puts the Dark Web in a new light. According to this report, around 55% of the content on Dark Web is legal; porn makes 7% of content on Dark Web, and most of it is legal. Drugs though is a favorite topic, only 45% of the content related to it can be termed as illegal. Fraud, extremism and illegal weapons trading on the other hand just make 5-7% of Dark Web.
The research methodology was done using a mix of machine intelligence and human intelligence, as pointed out in the article:
Conducting research on the dark web is a difficult task because the boundaries between categories are unclear,” said Clare Gollnick, Chief Data Scientist at Terbium Labs. “We put significant effort into making sure this study was based on a representative, random sample of the dark web. We believe the end result is a fair and comprehensive assessment of dark web activity, with clear acknowledgment of the limitations involved in both dark web data specifically and broader limitations of data generally.
Dark Web slowly is gaining traction as users of Open Web are finding utilities on this hidden portion of the Internet. Though the study is illuminating indeed, it fails to address how much of the illegal activity or content on Dark Web affects the real world. For instance, what quantity of drug trade takes place over Dark Web. Any answers?
Vishal Ingole, November 15, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Project Tor Releases the Browser Manual
November 14, 2016
Tor Browser, the gateway to Dark Web has got its user manual that tells users a step-by-step procedure to download, install use and uninstall the browser in the most efficient manner.
On the official Tor blog titled Announcing the Tor Browser User Manual it says:
The community team is excited to announce the new Tor Browser User Manual! The manual is currently only available in English. We will be adding more languages in the near future, as well as adding the manual to Transifex.
Web users are increasingly adopting secure browsers like Tor that shields them from online tracking. With this manual, users who are not well-versed with Dark Web and want to access it or want to surf the web anonymously will get detailed instructions on doing so.
Some of the critical areas (apart from basic instructions like download and install) covered in the manual include – circumventing the network restrictions, managing identities, securely connecting to Tor, managing plugins, and troubleshooting most common problems.
The manual was created after taking feedback from various mailing lists and IRC forums, as the blog points out:
During the creation of this manual, community feedback was requested over various mailing lists / IRC channels. We understand that many people who read this blog are not part of these lists / channels, so we would like to request that if you find errors in the manual or have feedback about how it could be improved, please open a ticket on our bug tracker and set the component to “community”.
The manual will soon be released in other major languages that will benefit non-English speaking users. The aim is to foster growth and adoption of Tor, however, will only privacy-conscious users will be using the browser?
Vishal Ingole, November 14, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Shining a Flashlight in Space
November 9, 2016
A tired, yet thorough metaphor of explaining the dark web is shining a flashlight in space. If you shine a flashlight in space, your puny battery-powered beacon will not shed any light on the trillions of celestial objects that exist in the vacuum. While you wave the flashlight around trying to see something in the cosmos, you are too blind to see the grand galactic show hidden by the beam. The University of Michigan shared the article, “Shadow Of The Dark Web” about Computer Science and Engineering Professor Mike Cafarella and his work with DARPA.
Cafarella is working on Memex, a project that goes beyond the regular text-based search engine. Using more powerful search tools, Memex concentrates on discovering information related to human trafficking. Older dark web search tools skimmed over information and were imprecise. Cafarella’s work improved dark web search tools, supplying data sets with more accurate information on traffickers, their contact information, and their location.
Humans are still needed to interpret the data as the algorithms do not know how to interpret the black market economic worth of trafficked people. His dark web search tools can be used for more than just sex trafficking:
His work can help identify systems of terrorist recruitment; bust money-laundering operations; build fossil databases from a century’s worth of paleontology publications; identify the genetic basis of diseases by drawing from thousands of biomedical studies; and generally find hidden connections among people, places, and things.
I would never have thought a few years ago that database and data-mining research could have such an impact, and it’s really exciting,’ says Cafarella. ‘Our data has been shipped to law enforcement, and we hear that it’s been used to make real arrests. That feels great.
In order to see the dark web, you need more than a flashlight. To continue the space metaphor, you need a powerful telescope that scans the heavens and can search the darkness where no light ever passes.
Whitney Grace, November 9, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Google May Be Edging Out Its Competitors Surreptitiously
November 9, 2016
Leading secure email service provider ProtonMail mysteriously vanished from Google’s search results for 10 long months. Though the search engine giant denies any wrongdoing on its part, privacy advocates are crying foul.
ZDNet in an article titled ProtonMail strikes out at Google for crippling encrypted email service searches says:
ProtonMail has accused Google of hiding the company from search results in what may have been an attempt to suffocate the Gmail competitor. The free encrypted email service, which caters to nearly one million users worldwide, has enjoyed an increasing user base and popularity over the past few years as governments worldwide seek to increase their surveillance powers.
This is not the first time that Google has been accused of misusing its dominant position to edge out its competitors. The technology giant is also facing anti-trust lawsuit in Europe over the way it manipulates search results to retain its dominance.
Though ProtonMail tried to contact Google multiple time, all attempts elicited no response from the company. Just as the secure email service provider vanished from its organic search results, it mysteriously reappeared enabling the email service provider to get back on its feet financially.
As stated in the article:
Once Google issued a “fix,” ProtonMail’s search ranking immediately recovered. Now, the company is ranked at number one and number three for the search terms at the heart of the situation.
What caused the outage is still unknown. According to ProtonMail, it might be a bug in the search engine algorithm. Privacy advocates, however, are of the opinion that ProtonMail’s encrypted email might have been irking Google.
Vishal Ingole, November 9, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Good Old Sleuthing Can Still Beat Dark Web
November 8, 2016
Undercover investigative work of different agencies in Bergen County, New York resulted in arrest of an 18-year old man who was offering hitman services over the Dark Net.
As reported by Patch.com in news report titled Hitman Who Drove To Mahwah For Meeting Arrested: Prosecutor :
The Mahwah Police Department, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Cyber Crimes Unit investigated Rowling, a Richmondville, New York resident. Rowling allegedly used the dark web to offer his services as a hitman.
Tracking Dark Web participants are extremely difficult, thus undercover agents posing as buyers were scouting hitmen in New York. Rowling without suspecting anything offered his services in return for some cash and a gun. The meeting was fixed at Mason Jar in Mahwah where he was subsequently arrested and remanded to Bergen County Jail.
As per the report, Rowling is being charged with:
In addition to conspiracy to murder, Rowling was charged with possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, unlawful possession of a weapon, and possession of silencer, Grewal said.
Drug traffickers, hackers, smugglers of contraband goods and narcotics are increasingly using the Dark Web for selling their goods and services. Authorities under such circumstances have no option but to use old techniques of investigation and put the criminals behind bars. However, most of the Dark Net and its participants are still out of reach of law enforcement agencies.
Vishal Ingole, November 8, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Hackers Having Field Day with Mirai Botnet
November 7, 2016
The massive cyber-attack that crippled major website across the US on October 21 was executed using an extensive network of infected computers and smart devices. The same botnet is now on sale on Dark Web which will enable hackers to launch similar or even massive attacks in the future.
As reported by Cyberscoop in article titled You can now buy a Mirai-powered botnet on the dark web:
A botnet of this size could be used to launch DDoS attacks in addition to automated spam and ransomware campaigns. The price tag was $7,500, payable in bitcoin. The anonymous vendor claimed it could generate a massive 1 terabit per second worth of internet traffic.
The particular botnet used in the Dyn attack are all infected with Mirai malware. Though the source code of the malware is freely available across hacker forums, a vendor over Dark Net is offering ready to use Mirai-Powered botnet for $7,500. This enables any hacker to launch DDoS attack of any scale on any network across the globe.
As the article points out:
With the rise of Mirai, experts say the underground DDoS market is shifting as vendors now have the ability to supercharge all of their offerings; giving them an avenue to potentially find new profits and to sell more destructive DDoS cannons.
Though the botnet at present is for sale, soon the prices may drop or even become free enabling a teenager sitting at home to bring down any major network down with few clicks. Things already have been set in motion, it only needs to be seen, when and where the next attack occurs.
Vishal Ingole, November 7, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Dark Web Is a Double Edged Sword
November 3, 2016
Apart from hackers and criminals of all kind, the Dark Web is also used by whistleblowers and oppressed citizens for communicating. The Dark Web thus is one of the most secure modes of communicating online; more than secure apps like WhatsApp.
The Newsweek in an article titled How the Dark Web Works and What It Looks Like says:
Dark web technologies are robustly built without central points of weakness, making it hard for authorities to infiltrate. Another issue for law enforcement is that—like most things—the dark web and its technologies can also be used for both good and evil.
Despite backdoors and exploits, law enforcement agencies find it difficult to track Dark Web participants. Few technology companies like Facebook, Microsoft, and Google through its messenger apps promise to provide end-to-end encryption to its users. However, the same companies now are harvesting data from these apps for commercial purposes. If that is the case, these apps can no longer be trusted. As pointed out by the article:
And yet some of these same communications companies have been harvesting user data for their own internal processes. Famously, Facebook enabled encryption on WhatsApp, protecting the communications from prying eyes, but could still look at data in the app itself.
Thus, for now, it seems Dark Web is the only form of secure communication online. It, however, needs to be seen how long the formless and headless entity called Dark Web remains invincible.
Vishal Ingole, November 3, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Americans Are Complacent About Online Data Breaches
November 1, 2016
Users of email, social networks, and other online services are aware of possible dangers that data breaches cause, but surprisingly are less concerned about it in 2016, a survey reveals.
Observer recently published a report titled Fears of the Web’s Dark Side—Strangely—Are Not Growing, which reveals:
People’s fears about their email being hacked have receded somewhat since 2014, bizarrely. Across the 1,071 Americans surveyed, that particular worry receded from 69 to 71 percent.
The survey commissioned by Craigconnects also reveals that online users are no longer very concerned about their data getting leaked online that may be used for identity theft; despite large scale breaches like Ashley Madison. Users, as the survey points out have accepted it as a trade-off for the convenience of Internet.
The reason for the complacency setting in probably lies in the fact that people have realized:
The business of social media company is built upon gathering as much information as possible about users and using that information to sell ads,” Michael W. Wellman, CEO of Virgil Security wrote the Observer in an email. “If the service is free, it’s the user that’s being sold.
Nearly 7 percent Americans are victims of identity theft. This, however, has not dissuaded them from taking precautionary measures to protect their identity online. Most users are aware that identity theft can be used for stealing money from bank accounts, but there are other dangers as well. For instance, prescription medication can be obtained legally using details of an identity theft victim. And then there are uses of the stolen data that only Dark Web actors know where such data of millions of victims is available for few hundred dollars.
Vishal Ingole November 1, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Online Drugs Trade Needs Surgical Strikes
October 25, 2016
Despite shutdown of Silk Road by the FBI in 2013, online drug trade through Dark Net is thriving. Only military-precision like surgical strikes on vendors and marketplaces using technological methods can solve this problem.
RAND Corporation in its research papaer titled Taking Stock of the Online Drugs Trade says that –
Illegal drug transactions on cryptomarkets have tripled since 2013, with revenues doubling. But at $12-21 (€10.5-18.5) million a month, this is clearly a niche market compared to the traditional offline market, estimated at $2.3 (€2) billion a month in Europe alone.
The primary goal of the research paper was to determine first, the size and scope of cryptomarkets and second, to device avenues for law enforcement agencies to intervene these illegal practices. Though the report covered the entire Europe, the role of Netherlands, in particular, was studied in this report. This was owing to the fact that Netherlands has the highest rate of consumption of drugs acquired using cryptomarkets.
Some interesting findings of the report include –
- Though revenues have doubled, drug cryptomarkets are still niche and generate revenues of $21 million/month as compared to $2.1 billion in offline trade.
- Cannabis still is the most in demand followed by stimulants like cocaine and ecstasy-type drugs
- Vendors from US, Australia, Canada and Western Europe dominate the online marketplace
Apart from following the conventional methods of disrupting the drug trade (dismantling logistics, undercover operations, and taking down marketplaces), the only new method suggested includes the use of Big Data techniques.
Cryptomarkets are going to thrive, and the only way to tackle this threat is by following the money (in this case, the cryptocurrencies). But who is going to bell the cat?
Vishal Ingole, October 25, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Half of the Largest Companies: Threat Vulnerable
October 24, 2016
Compromised Credentials, a research report by Digital Shadows reveals that around 1,000 companies comprising of Forbes Global 2000 are at risk as credentials of their employees are leaked or compromised.
As reported by Channel EMEA in Digital Shadows Global Study Reveals UAE Tops List in Middle East for…
The report found that 97 percent of those 1000 of the Forbes Global 2000 companies, spanning all businesses sectors and geographical regions, had leaked credentials publicly available online, many of them from third-party breaches.
Owing to large-scale data breaches in recent times, credentials of 5.5 million employees are available in public domain for anyone to see. Social networks like LinkedIN, MySpace and Tumblr were the affliction points of these breaches, the report states.
Analyzed geographically, companies in Middle-East seem to be the most affected:
The report revealed that the most affected country in the Middle East – with over 15,000 leaked credentials was the UAE. Saudi Arabia (3360), Kuwait (203) followed by Qatar (99) made up the rest of the list. This figure is relatively small as compared to the global figure due to the lower percentage of organizations that reside in the Middle East.
Affected organizations may not be able to contain the damages by simply resetting the passwords of the employees. It also needs to be seen if the information available is contemporary, not reposted and is unique. Moreover, mere password resetting can cause lot of friction within the IT departments of the organizations.
Without proper analysis, it will be difficult for the affected companies to gauge the extent of the damage. But considering the PR nightmare it leads to, will these companies come forward and acknowledge the breaches?
Vishal Ingole, October 24, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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