Print Email Facebook Twitter Quantifying Dark Web Shops’ Illicit Revenue Title Quantifying Dark Web Shops’ Illicit Revenue Author Oosthoek, K. (TU Delft Cyber Security) van Staalduinen, Mark (CFLW Cyber Strategies) Smaragdakis, G. (TU Delft Cyber Security) Date 2023 Abstract The Dark Web, primarily Tor, has evolved to protect user privacy and freedom of speech through anonymous routing. However, Tor also facilitates cybercriminal actors who utilize it for illicit activities. Quantifying the size and nature of such activity is challenging, as Tor complicates indexing by design. This paper proposes a methodology to estimate both size and nature of illicit commercial activity on the Dark Web. We demonstrate this based on crawling Tor for single-vendor Dark Web Shops, i.e., niche storefronts operated by single cybercriminal actors or small groups. Based on data collected from Tor, we show that just in 2021, Dark Web Shops generated at least 113 million USD in revenue. Sexual abuse is the top illicit revenue category, followed by financial crime at a great distance. We also compare Dark Web Shops’ activity with a large Dark Web Marketplace, showing that these are parallel economies. Our methodology contributes towards automated analysis of illicit activity in Tor. Furthermore our analysis sheds light on the evolving Dark Web Shop ecosystem and provides insights into evidence-based policymaking regarding criminal Dark Web activity. Subject Computer crimebitcoindark web To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:b3138369-4e0a-44ce-8258-ccdfd7a452e2 DOI https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3235409 ISSN 2169-3536 Source IEEE Access, 11, 4794-4808 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2023 K. Oosthoek, Mark van Staalduinen, G. Smaragdakis Files PDF Quantifying_Dark_Web_Shop ... evenue.pdf 1.72 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:b3138369-4e0a-44ce-8258-ccdfd7a452e2/datastream/OBJ/view