#DEEP WEB ICEBERG EXPLAINED REGISTRATION#

Its recent seizure displayed law enforcement’s willingness to target more of the illegal trade network beyond the marketplaces – including promoters and launderers. DeepDotWeb did not sell contraband instead, administrators profited from promoting criminal sites and marketplaces through affiliate links. In the same operation, law enforcement simultaneously disabled one popular dark web news source and review page, DeepDotWeb. Law enforcement action didn’t stop there – on an internationally coordinated operation led to the takedowns of two more dark web marketplaces, Wall Street Marketplace and Valhalla Marketplace (Silkkitie). “One of the most important criminal investigations of the year…because of this operation, the American people are safer – safer from the threat of identity fraud and malware, and safer from deadly drugs.”īefore Operation Bayonet, English-speaking cybercriminal activity mainly took place on online dark web marketplaces such as Alpha Bay and Hansa, where hundreds of thousands of vendors and buyers were doing an estimate of over $1 billion in illegal trade. United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions described the operation as: In July of 2017, United States and Dutch law enforcement launched Operation Bayonet where they seized and disabled two of the most prominent dark web marketplaces, AlphaBay and Hansa. While some deep and dark web sites are valuable sources, you need to know what you’re looking for, otherwise it’s easy to waste time and resources.

#DEEP WEB ICEBERG EXPLAINED REGISTRATION#

Most of the data on the deep web is mundane or “normal” for example, email or Facebook accounts might fall under this definition as they require registration to see the content. Simply because it isn’t accessible by a traditional search engine, it does not mean the deep web is necessarily interesting. The dark web does not monopolize cybercrime.ĭifferences between the surface, deep, and dark web Unsurprisingly, the deep web is also home to criminality – but so too is the clear web. To clarify, the deep web is broadly defined as anything that is not indexed by traditional search engines.

Assumption 2: The dark web is the same thing as the deep web.

The dark web is not synonymous with cybercrime. While the dark web is home to lots of crime, it also hosts many legitimate companies like New York Times and Facebook who offer Tor-based services, as well as generally benign content.

Assumption 1: The dark web is synonymous with the criminal internet.

However, let’s first dispel some misconceptions about the dark web. Unfortunately, gaining visibility into criminal locations is difficult: it requires specialized knowledge, access to closed sources, and technology that’s capable of monitoring these sources for misuses of your data. The anonymity of the dark web makes it an attractive technology for illegal purposes. It is a web of anonymity where users’ identities and locations are protected by encryption technology that routes user data through many servers across the globe – making it extremely difficult to track users. The dark web is an area of the internet that is only accessible with specific browser software, such as Tor or I2P. In truth, the dark web only contributes to a small chunk of cybercrime-we must consider additional sources to get a truer sense of the threat landscape. Iceberg analogies have been common for several years, ostensibly demonstrating the deep and dark web is significantly larger than the open web. Unfortunately, there is a lot of ear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) concerning the dark web. Few companies span all these sources fewer still have capabilities to go beyond simple scraping of sites. “Deep and dark web” spans a huge range of potential sources marketplaces, closed forums, messaging apps, and paste sites. However, monitoring these sources is challenging, and few solutions have sophisticated coverage. The most successful strategies we observe have clear requirements, such as fraud detection, threat monitoring, and finding exposed credentials. Gaining access to dark web and deep web sources can be extremely powerful- if you focus on relevant use cases.

Deep web iceberg explained