Nobody's home, just as the sender intended. AndreyPopov/ iStock via Getty Images Plus Online shopping isn’t just a convenient way to buy batteries, diapers, computers and other stuff without going to a brick-and-mortar store. Many Americans also use the internet to quietly acquire illegal, fake and stolen items. Guns, prescription drugs no doctor has ordered and checks are on this long list, as well as cloned credit cards, counterfeit passports and phony driver’s licenses. Because buyers and sellers alike realize that the authorities can detect illegal online transactions, criminals and their ..read more

David Maimon's cybersecurity research group noticed a flood of checks in underground markets, which opened a window into much broader criminal activity. Collage by Kimberly Patch Professor David Maimon is director of the Evidence-Based Cybersecurity Research Group at Georgia State University. He and his group are well familiar with what happens on the dark web, which consists of websites that look like ordinary websites but can be reached only using special browsers or authorization codes and are often used to sell illegal commodities. In this behind-the-story video, Maimon shows some of the h ..read more

Loot stolen from the U.S. Postal Service is displayed on the dark web. Via Evidence-Based Cybersecurity Research GroupThe types of crimes that use drop accounts are multiplying rapidly, but there are ways to decrease your chances of becoming a victim. Do not mail checks from anywhere but your local post office. Not even your own mailbox is safe. The best option? Pay bills and send money online. Protect your identity online by following these steps Guard your Social Security number. Never use it on medical forms - if asked, write “available upon request” - for a job interview, when applying ..read more

Colorado River toad Shutterstock The internet has made it easier for people to buy and sell a huge variety of wildlife – from orchids, cacti and fungi to thousands of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fish, as well as insects, corals and other invertebrates. But alongside legal trade in wildlife, there’s a dark twin – illegal trading of wildlife. Endangered birds with very few left in the wild. Horns sawn off shot rhinos. The illegal wildlife trade is a blight. It puts yet more pressure on nature, adds to biodiversity loss and threatens biosecurity, sustainable development and huma ..read more

Each time abuse material is shared, the victim is revictimised. Chinnapong | Shutterstock In the seven years since the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse launched in 2015, it has held more than 300 days of public hearings, processed over 2 million pages of evidence, heard from over 700 witnesses, and engaged with over 7,000 victims and survivors. One of the most pressing issues the inquiry has raised is that of online-facilitated child sexual abuse. The use of hidden services to distribute online child sexual abuse material globally increased by 155% between 2019 and 2020. In 2021 alo ..read more

Getty Images New Zealand is generally proud of being a world leader, but there’s one claim that might not be universally admired: being home to the longest running English-language market for illegal drugs on the so-called “darknet”. Known as “Tor Market”, it has been active since March 2018 and has outlived several larger and better known operations such as “Dream Market”, “Hydra Market” and “Empire”. The longevity of Tor Market is surprising, given so many darknet drug markets have only lasted relatively briefly. That doesn’t mean you’ll be able to find it easily. The darknet is an encrypte ..read more

T. Schneider/Shutterstock Shortly after Australian telecommunications company Optus announced the identity data of millions of customers had been stolen, a person claiming to be the hacker announced they would delete the data for US$1 million. When Optus didn’t pay, the purported hacker published 10,000 stolen records and threatened to release ten thousand more every day until the ransom deadline. These leaked records contained identity information such as driver’s license, passport and Medicare numbers, as well as parliamentary and defense contact information. A few hours after the data drop ..read more

Shutterstock Child sexual abuse material is rampant online, despite considerable efforts by big tech companies and governments to curb it. And according to reports, it has only become more prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic. This material is largely hosted on the anonymous part of the internet — the “darknet” - where perpetrators can share it with little fear of prosecution. There are currently a few platforms offering anonymous internet access, including i2p, FreeNet and Tor. Tor is by far the largest and presents the biggest conundrum. The open-source network and browser grants users an ..read more

The black market for stolen personal information motivates most data breaches. aleksey-martynyuk/iStock via Getty Images Data breaches have become common, and billions of records are stolen worldwide every year. Most of the media coverage of data breaches tends to focus on how the breach happened, how many records were stolen and the financial and legal impact of the incident for organizations and individuals affected by the breach. But what happens to the data that is stolen during these incidents? As a cybersecurity researcher, I track data breaches and the black market in stolen data. The d ..read more

Zenza Flarini/Shutterstock From Washington DC to Wall Street, 2021 has already seen online groups causing major organised offline disruption. Some of it has been in violation of national laws, some in violation of internet platforms’ terms of service. When these groups are seen to cause societal harm, the solution has been knee-jerk: to ban or “deplatform” those groups immediately, leaving them digitally “homeless”. But the online world is a Pandora’s box of sites, apps, forums and message boards. Groups banned from Facebook migrated seamlessly to Parler, and from Parler, via encrypted messagi ..read more