Threat Management, Security Strategy, Plan, Budget

After fall of AlphaBay and Hansa, other darkweb markets see uptick

Last month international authorities brought down two of the three largest dark web market places, AlphaBay and Hansa, yet researchers report business is still booming as other marketplaces fill the void.

As of now, Dream Market is now the biggest illegal store with more than 98,844 listing by the end of July, according to researcher carried out by Israeli cyber-security firm Cyberint, for the BBC.

Other market places also so a bump in growth with TradeRoute experiencing a 16.3 percent gain with listings increasing from 14,914 to 17,816 since the shutdowns. Even smaller sites are seeing growth with Tochka listings expecting a 28.1 percent bringing it to 2,390 listings.

Only one of the observed markets saw a drop off in activity, with RsClub Market, one of the only monitored sites to sell guns, saw 37.8 percent fall off as the site's listing count dropped by 638 to 1,689 over the week. Researchers suspect users looking to buy and sell illegal good are steering clear of RsClub since it may likely be the focus of follow-up investigations.

"The takedowns have certainly not discouraged the vendors but it's still not totally clear if it has put off the buyers," Alan Woodward, an advisor to Europol, told the BBS.

"The sellers believe they are relatively immune - they don't use their real details so are hard to track down even if a site is commandeered - but the users have to give delivery addresses and the like.

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