Dark Web Drug Trade Unfazed by Law Enforcement Crackdowns
September 3, 2015
When Silk Road was taken down in 2013, the Dark Web took a big hit, but it was only a few months before black marketers found alternate means to sell their wares, including illegal drugs. The Dark Web provides an anonymous and often secure means to purchase everything from heroin to prescription narcotics with, apparently, few worries about the threat of prosecution. Wired explains that “Crackdowns Haven’t Stopped The Dark Web’s $100M Yearly Drug Sale,” proving that if there is a demand, the Internet will provide a means for illegal sales.
In an effort to determine if the Dark Web have grown to declined, Carnegie Mellon researchers Nicolas Cristin and Kyle Soska studied thirty-five Dark Web markets from 2013 to January 2015. They discovered that the Dark Web markets are no longer explosively growing, but the market has remained stable fluctuating from $100 million to $180 million a year.
The researchers concluded that the Dark Web market is able to survive any “economic” shifts, including law enforcement crackdowns:
“More surprising, perhaps, is that the Dark Web economy roughly maintains that sales volume even after major disasters like thefts, scams, takedowns, and arrests. According to the Carnegie Mellon data, the market quickly recovered after the Silk Road 2 market lost millions of dollars of users’ bitcoins in an apparent hack or theft. Even law enforcement operations that remove entire marketplaces, as in last year’s purge of half a dozen sites in the Europol/FBI investigation known as Operation Onymous, haven’t dropped the market under $100 million in sales per year.”
Cristin and Soska’s study is the most comprehensive to measure the size and trajectory of the Dark Web’s drug market. Their study ended prematurely, because two Web sites grew so big that the researchers’ software wasn’t able to track the content. Their study showed that most Dark Web vendors are using more encryption tools, they make profits less $1000, and they are mostly selling MDMA and marijuana.
Soska and Cristin also argue that the Dark Web drug trade decreases violence in the retail drug trade, i.e. it keeps the transactions digital than having there be more violence on the streets. They urge law enforcement officials to rethink shutting down the Dark Web markets, because it does not seem to have any effect.
Whitney Grace, September 3, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Insight Into the Zero-Day Vulnerability Business
August 14, 2015
An ironic security breach grants a rare glimpse into the workings of an outfit that sells information on security vulnerabilities, we learn from “Hacking Team: a Zero-Day Market Case Study” at Vlad Tsyrklevich’s blog. Software weak spots have become big business. From accessing sensitive data to installing secret surveillance software, hackers hunt for chinks in the armor and sell that information to the highest (acceptable) bidder. It seems to be governments, mostly, that purchase this information, but corporations and other organizations can be in the market, as well. The practice is, so far, perfectly legal, and vendors swear they only sell to the good guys. One of these vulnerability vendors is Italian firm Hacking Team, known for its spying tools. Hacking Team itself was recently hacked, its email archives exposed.
Blogger Vlad Tsyrklevich combs the revealed emails for information on the market for zero-day (or 0day) vulnerabilities. These security gaps are so named because once the secret is out, the exposed party has “zero days” to fix the vulnerability before damage is done. Some may find it odd just how prosaic the procedure for selling zero-days appears. The article reveals:
“Buyers follow standard technology purchasing practices around testing, delivery, and acceptance. Warranty and requirements negotiations become necessary in purchasing a product intrinsically predicated on the existence of information asymmetry between the buyer and the seller. Requirements—like targeted software configurations—are important to negotiate ahead of time because adding support for new targets might be impossible or not worth the effort. Likewise warranty provisions for buyers are common so they can minimize risk by parceling out payments over a set timeframe and terminating payments early if the vulnerability is patched before that timeframe is complete. Payments are typically made after a 0day exploit has been delivered and tested against requirements, necessitating sellers to trust buyers to act in good faith. Similarly, buyers purchasing exploits must trust the sellers not to expose the vulnerability or share it with others if it’s sold on an exclusive basis.”
The post goes on to discuss pricing, product reliability, and the sources of Hacking Team’s offerings. Tsyrklevich compiles specifics on dealings between Hacking Team and several of its suppliers, including the companies Netragard, Qavar, VUPEN, Vulnerabilities Brokerage International, and COSEINC, as well as a couple of freelancing individuals. See the article for more on each of these (and a few more under “miscellaneous”). Tsyrklevich notes that, though the exposure of Hacking Team’s emails has prompted changes to the international export-control agreement known as the Wassenaar Arrangement, the company itself seems to be weathering the exposure just fine. In fact, their sales are reportedly climbing.
Cynthia Murrell, August 14, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
CounterTack Partners with ManTech Cyber Solutions for a More Comprehensive Platform
August 13, 2015
A new acquisition by CounterTack brings predictive capability to that company’s security offerings, we learn from “CounterTack Acquires ManTech Cyber Solutions” at eWeek. Specifically, it is a division of ManTech International, dubbed ManTech Cyber Solutions International (MCSI), that has been snapped up under undisclosed terms by the private security firm.
CounterTack president and CEO Neal Chreighton says the beauty of the deal lies in the lack of overlap between their tech and what MCSI brings to the table; while their existing products can tell users what is happening or has already happened, MCSI’s can tell them what to watch out for going forward. Writer Sean Michael Kerner elaborates:
“MCSI’s technology provides a lot of predictive capabilities around malware that can help enterprises determine how dangerous a malicious payload might be, Creighton said. Organizations often use the MCSI Responder Pro product after an attack has occurred to figure out what has happened. In contrast, the MCSI Active Defense product looks at issues in real time to make predictions, he said. A big area of concern for many security vendors is the risk of false positives for security alerts. With the Digital DNA technology, CounterTack will now have a predictive capability to be able to better determine the risk with a given malicious payload. The ability to understand the potential capabilities of a piece of malware will enable organizations to properly provide a risk score for a security event. With a risk score in place, organizations can then prioritize malware events to organize resources to handle remediation, he said.”
Incorporation of the open-source Hadoop means CounterTack can scale to fit any organization, and the products can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud. Cleighton notes his company’s primary competitor is security vendor CrowdStrike; we’ll be keeping an eye on both these promising firms.
Based in Waltham, Massachusetts, CounterTack was founded in 2007. The company declares their Sentinel platform to be the only in-progress attack intelligence and response solution on the market (for now.) Founded way back in 1968, ManTech International develops and manages solutions for cyber security, C4ISR, systems engineering, and global logistics from their headquarters in Washington, DC. Both companies are currently hiring; click here for opportunities at CounterTack, and here for ManTech’s careers page.
Cynthia Murrell, August 13, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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