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It’s tough to measure darkish net statistics, but it’s estimated that there are tens of tens of millions of URLs on the dark internet and tens of thousands of energetic dark net websites, mega market darknet together with hundreds of forums and marketplaces.

Here are the highest ten dark web facts you need to know for 2024:

1. ChatGPT clones are appearing on the darkish internet. Security researchers have discovered AI chatbots advertised on the darkish net which might be built on high of massive language fashions (LLMs) like those utilized by ChatGPT. One instance, WormGPT, is adept at AI-driven phishing, especially Business Email Compromise (BEC) assaults. Another, FraudGPT, is an AI-pushed Chatbot that deceives people into divulging delicate info or performing harmful actions for as little as a couple hundred dollars a month.

2. COVID-19 created a dark internet vaccine market. Cybercriminals have exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to create a vaccine certification market on the darkish web. As determined people flocked to the darkish net to get vaccines and certificates, a complete new market opened up to fulfill the demand. Afterward, the vaccine black market remained active.

3. Fentanyl is a dark internet profit center. In 2021, a darkish internet distributor was caught hawking half a million faux oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl or different drugs. In 2023, Operation SpecTor resulted within the seizure of 850 kilograms of medication, together with sixty four kilograms of fentanyl or fentanyl-laced narcotics, and over $fifty three million in money and cryptocurrency.

4. The dark net has its personal criminal empires. Before being seized in April 2022, Russian cybercrime syndicate Hydra accounted for 80% of darknet market-related cryptocurrency transactions, with a internet value of over $5.2 billion. Hydra has since been replaced by aspiring darknet overlords OMG!OMG!, Blacksprut, Mega, Solaris, and Kraken.

5. The darkish web started out mild. One of Tor’s unique uses was to cover the communications and identities of American operatives and dissidents residing within oppressive regimes overseas. Freenet’s unique objective was freedom of speech and combatting censorship. This tradition continues to today, with darkish web services akin to SecureDrop to add sensitive paperwork, and Ricochet Refresh for secure chat.

6. Drugs rule the darkish day. Illicit drugs are essentially the most bought commodity on the darkish net, making up over half of the transactions on the dark net. Cannabis and pharmaceuticals make up roughly half of darknet medicine bought, with MDMA and LSD combining for another 20% or so.

7. Dark net criminal providers vary from low-end to high-end. As of July 2022, 90% of marketed exploits on dark marketplaces sell for lower than $10, with a median value of just over $2. Zero days (vulnerabilities not yet publicly identified) go for upwards of $10,000 on darknet markets. Nearly all of high-end exploit trade happens in personal channels.

8. Seller rep is every part. All cybercriminal marketplaces enable consumers and sellers to go away opinions. According to analysis outlined in the 2022 HP Wolf Security report, 92% of cybercriminal marketplaces have dispute resolution companies, and 77% of dark marketplaces require a vendor license, which might cost around $3,000. Nearly all of distributors have a positive feedback rating over 65%.

9. Crypto is king. Because of how difficult it is to trace, 98% of dark web transactions are carried out in cryptocurrency like Bitcoin (BTC) or Monero (XMR). All instructed, cryptocurrency use for illicit transactions was estimated to have surpassed $20 billion in 2022.

10. Cybercrime itself is a product. It’s safer to teach cybercrime than to do it yourself. Seasoned cybercriminals now offer hacking tutorials, playbooks, and specific cybercrime programs on the dark internet.

Dark web myths

The dark net is mysterious, and lots of seedy exercise spreads at nighttime, but it’s not as dangerous because it sounds. While you can hire hitmen on the dark net, it’s virtually always a scam.

Dark Web Myth: Accessing the darkish web is prohibited.

Dark Web Truth: Accessing and viewing content on the dark web is authorized in the United States, the EU, and most nations all over the world. It’s not unlawful to go to dark net marketplaces, go to darkish websites, or look at darkish internet wares. But as quickly as unlawful content material gets into your system, otherwise you pay for illegal goods or providers, you’re on the hook.

Dark Web Myth: There is no such thing as a regulation on the dark internet.

Dark Web Truth: The darkish net regulates itself, and dark marketplaces are handled like a business. To sell on top platforms, distributors must not solely have a license, but provide information on the product sort, the origin of production, the precise amount obtainable, the worth, and even a picture of the product. For materials goods, the shipping-accessible destinations and origin have to be provided, in addition to transport methods and pricing.

Dark Web Myth: You can’t be tracked.

Dark Web Truth: Web tracking remains to be doable on the dark web. Though the dark internet uses encryption to frustrate tracking efforts, the anonymity is leveraged by authorities to conduct on-line surveillance, set up honeypots, and function nameless dark internet-information tip lines. Cybercriminals have also been recognized to squat on Tor exit nodes - the darkish web site visitors cones that are imagined to be anonymous - and redirect customers to unsafe websites where the SSL certificate has been stripped.

Dark Web Myth: Only criminals use the dark net

Dark Web Truth: There are various legal dark web makes use of, and much of the content on the dark net is legal. Many individuals use the dark net to keep away from authorities surveillance. Edward Snowden famously used the darkish net to whistleblow on the NSA, and Arab Spring protesters used Tor to bypass censorship. More not too long ago, Tor was used to arrange protests in Iran. Many reputable companies, like the BBC and Facebook, have arrange web sites on the dark web to assist visitors in repressive international locations bypass censorship and entry their content material.

Crime on the darkish net

The Farmer’s Market was the first recognized darkish internet marketplace, followed by the notorious Silk Road darkish web market. Both have been assembly locations to buy unlawful narcotics before morphing into full-blown illicit trade. Many darkish marketplaces final less only months, but some, reminiscent of Vice City, have stood the take a look at of time. Upstarts equivalent to ASAP Market pop as much as change any markets that get shut down.

Drug gross sales are still the most common crime on the dark net. The sale of cannabis is the most typical crime on the darkish net, adopted by the sale of pharmaceuticals. "Multiple category" marketplaces such because the just lately resurfaced Alphabay are all-purpose darknet versions of Amazon that make up a big share of dark web content material.

Who's using the deep net and the dark web?

Almost everyone uses the deep net day by day, similar to to examine their e-mail. The deep web is the part of the internet that isn’t searchable and desires authentication to entry, like login credentials. The darkish internet is composed of specially encrypted components of the deep net, and it’s utilized by cybercriminals, in addition to everyday folks, who want to speak and commerce in secret.

In 2023, about 550,000 Americans used Tor every day, which accounts for just over 20% of day by day Tor customers worldwide.

Daily Tor users:

- Germany 47%

- United States 21%

- India: 1.89%

- Finland: 1.86%

- Russia 1.72%

- Netherlands 1.55%

- Indonesia 1.48%

- United Kingdom: 1.39%

- France 1.38%

- Iran 0.94%

According to 1 study, English is the most well-liked language in Onion domains (73%), adopted by Russian (11%), German (2.33%), French (2.15%), and Spanish (2.14%).

Deep internet statistics:

- The deep internet holds over 7.5 petabytes of information, which is significantly more than the surface web.

- The deep internet is estimated to symbolize about 95% of the world huge web.

- It’s believed that around 5% of the deep web is the darkish web, however it’s arduous to say as a result of so much of the darkish internet is tough to find and research.

- Thousands of deep internet sites are hacked every day.

- You’re possible more susceptible to hacking on the floor internet than the deep web, as a result of deep web information is protected by login credentials.

- Nearly all of the darkish websites within the deep internet have .onion and .i2p extensions.

Dark internet customers might be:

- Whistleblowers

- Journalists

- Protesters

- Grassroots organizers

- Drug traffickers

- Doxxers

- Cyberbullies

- Cybercriminals

- Cyberterrorists

- Hacktivists

- Insider workers

- Script kiddies or other varieties of hackers

- Sexually deviant users

- Threat Intelligence

- Companies

- State actors

It's unclear how a lot of the web is the darkish internet. Even the very best darkish net search engines can’t discover dark markets that truly don’t wish to be discovered.

While the darkish net is just not solely sinister, safety is removed from assured in a place the place criminal activity flourishes. If you’re considering of braving the darkish, learn how to set up a VPN to present your self another layer of security before you enter.

The dark web economy

The darkish net economic system has grown more sophisticated over the years. Most darkish internet market gross sales are actually carried out via escrow. When a consumer purchases a product, the paid quantity is transferred to a cryptocurrency wallet owned by the marketplace. The marketplace releases the funds when the client confirms receipt.

In addition, repute metrics have taken over dark marketplaces, with vendor licenses changing into the norm. The most used darknet marketplaces have come to resemble their legitimate floor web counterparts.

What is for sale on the dark internet?

Anything you can buy legally, you can too purchase on the dark net, together with apparel, video video games, and rare collectibles. Drugs akin to cannabis are commonly sold on the darkish internet. Fraud takes up around 70% of non-drug related illicit trade on the dark internet.

Illegal issues you should buy on the darkish internet:

- Recreational drugs such as cannabis

- Illicit prescription medication and different pharmaceuticals

- Hard medication equivalent to heroin

- Firearms

- Toxic chemicals

- Pornography

- Counterfeit currency

Fraud you can buy on the darkish net:

- Credit card numbers

- Online credentials

- Stolen financial institution accounts

- Gift card numbers

- Fullz (or full data), full victim profiles needed for id theft

- Hacked databases

- Fraudulent paperwork similar to driver’s licenses or passports

- Hacked accounts, resembling hacked ChatGPT accounts or hacked Netflix accounts

Media and software you should purchase on the dark net:

- Hacking tutorials

- Cracking tutorials

- Social engineering tutorials

- Hacked software program

- Pirated software program

- Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and background check guides

- Carding strategies (learn how to commit numerous card-primarily based crimes)

Malware you should purchase on the dark internet:

- Remote Access Trojans (RATs)

- Botnets

- Ransomware

- Crypto-miners or different tools for cryptojacking

- Hacking instruments resembling password crackers

- Other varieties of malware

Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) you should buy on the dark web:

- Spam

- DDoS (Distributed-Denial-of-Service) attacks or booter services

- Review bombing

- Phishing email assaults, including custom spear-phishing campaigns

- Background checks (which means your target will be hacked or cyberstalked)

- Hacking

In addition to malware-as-a-service, personal information is big enterprise on the dark net. After a knowledge breach, private information is often offered to the best bidder on the darkish net. See tips on how to report id theft in case you discover one thing off about your electronic mail or monetary accounts.

History of the dark web: What is it and how did it start?

The darkish internet has dual origins. Within the mid-1990s, to anonymize web connections, scientists at the US Naval Research Lab created the first covert web communications channel by routing and encrypting visitors by means of multiple servers. Their work continued within the early 2000s under MIT graduate Roger Dingledine, finally coalescing into The Tor Project and Tor browser, an online browser that accesses Tor’s anonymized network and thus can serve as a portal to the darkish net.

Meanwhile, in 2000, Ian Clarke and a gaggle of web volunteers developed Clarke’s graduate thesis about "A Distributed, Decentralised Information Storage and Retrieval System" into "Freenet," the world’s first decentralized peer-to-peer network. Freenet, now often known as Hyphanet, has grown into a personal file-sharing, chatting, and web site community, but it has no external network access or conventional web service.

Tor, Hyphanet, and offshoots like the Invisible Internet Project (I2P) make up the underground network of decentralized peer-to-peer providers known right now because the dark net.

No one owns the darkish internet - it’s run and maintained by its users. It’s exhausting to know precisely how many individuals use the darkish web, since nameless searching is what it does finest, but Tor’s inside metrics reveal that around 4-5 million people use the darkish internet every single day.

While there are numerous respectable causes folks entry the darkish net, its rapid person development within the wake of COVID-19 has led to rising cybercrime markets and increased safety concerns.

Projections and future trends

Cybercrime is becoming a service-driven economy, and the dark internet is the place cybercriminals do their business. Cybercriminals can now rent assault software program and pay a fee to the owner. Reputation can also be turning into the inspiration of the darkish web community, as companies begin to operate like firms.

Darknet crime is growing in Southeast Asia and other elements of the world, as determined youth pay extra experienced darkish net criminals for guidance. And elevated censorship around the globe is driving increasingly people into the darkish net, where some info may be simpler to find.

With cybercrime expertise at a premium, and cybercrime instruments like generative AI chatbots turning into more refined day-after-day, we may see an explosion of automated cybercrime over the approaching years.

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What is darkish web monitoring?

Dark net monitoring is a service that scrapes database leaks, indexes them, after which sells entry to people who want to scan for his or her info. Database leaks might be bought and scanned individually, however dark internet monitoring gathers every thing in a single place. Dark net monitoring is commonly a worth-added commodity attached to cyberthreat assessments corresponding to vulnerability scans.

Is my data on the dark web?

Data breaches are common, and in case you are a protracted-time web consumer or frequent the most-used websites, your information has probably been on the darkish internet in some unspecified time in the future. If you’re apprehensive, do a darkish net scan to see in case your knowledge is on the market. You may as well pay a dark net monitoring service to collate all the info leaks presently recognized and scan to your info.

Is the dark web greater than the deep net?

No, the deep web is estimated to make up about 95% of the whole internet, while the dark net is a small percentage of that. The precise proportion is unclear, however the darkish web is estimated to be about three to 5% of all the world huge web.

Who created the dark web?

Nobody person created the darkish net. The darkish internet rose organically from multiple sources, similar to US Naval researchers David Goldschlag, Mike Reed, and Paul Syverson, University of Edinburgh scholar Ian Clarke, and MIT graduate Roger Dingledine. As enthusiasm for an nameless, decentralized internet spread, volunteers leveraged the work of those early pioneers to create the dark web.

Are the dark net and the deep web the same factor?

No, the dark web will not be the identical as the deep net. The deep net is the unindexed, largely unsearchable a part of the internet that lies behind login credentials or other entry protocols. The dark web is a subset of the deep web, and it’s encrypted and also you need special instruments or tools to access it.