Content
As benevolent as its creators and some of its users are, the Tor network isn’t called the Dark Web for nothing. Daniel Moore and Thomas Rid, researchers at King’s College in London, classified the contents of 2,723 live dark websites over a five-week period in 2015 and found that 57% hosted illicit material. This material ranges from the sales of drugs and counterfeit money to hacked credentials for banking accounts and streaming services. You can also find services offering to perform cybersecurity hacks like DDOS and botnet attacks all the way up to corporate and governmental espionage. The Dark Web is also home to scammers trying to steal money from the very people trying to purchase those illicit materials and services.
The dark web, on the other hand, uses encryption software to provide even greater security. This is where people go to find data retrieved from ransomware attacks and identity thefts, buy drugs, to fund and promote terrorism, and sell their hacking services. The dark web is a subset of the main internet, that exists on overlay networks called “darknets” and requires specific software to access. Traditional search engines return results because they contain indexes of links to websites.
Dark Web Money Hacks
A popular way that hackers gain access to a network is through phishing attacks. If a hacker had access to an employee’s email, they could simply send password requests for other accounts to the email, and then change passwords for all those connected accounts. Hacking an employee’s entire account, and then the company’s network, can happen in the blink of an eye. For every website, there are many more web pages on the deep web.
- The dark web can help protect users’ privacy in ways the surface web often fails to do.
- The Hidden Wiki is a dark web version of Wikipedia that offers links to different websites on the dark web.
- All your device’s internet traffic first goes to the VPN server, then it bounces through the Tor Network before ending up at its final destination.
Using our ocean and iceberg visual, the dark web would be the bottom tip of the submerged iceberg. The deep web rests below the surface and accounts for approximately 90% of all websites. This would be the part of an iceberg beneath the water, much larger than the surface web.
Top Darknet Websites
That’s “a special-use top level domain suffix designating an anonymous hidden service reachable via the Tor network,” according to Wikipedia. Browsers with the appropriate proxy can reach these sites, but others can’t. The Hidden Wiki and its mirrors and forks hold some of the largest directories of content at any given time. Traditional media and news channels such as ABC News have also featured articles examining the darknet.
Hidden Answers can be described as a dark web version of Reddit or Quora. This means it doesn’t primarily focus on the United Kingdom, but instead covers news from all over the world. Darknet sites typically have domain names made up of a nonsensical jumble of letters and symbols.
Georgia’s Largest Hospital System Announces Data Breach
Businesses whose networks stay stagnant or aren’t constantly monitored are at a high risk of being victimized by a cyber attack, experiencing severe network downtime, and more. Weak passwords are one of the easiest ways that a hacker can break into your network and install ransomware. Consider strengthening your passwords and protecting where they’re stored to better leverage your cyber security infrastructure. If a hacker gains access to company or employee financial information, they can max out company and employee credit cards. HR platforms contain especially sensitive financial information such as tax documents, and therefore need to be sufficiently protected.
It’s pretty much up to the buyer and the seller to duke it out. Every communication is encrypted, so even the simplest transaction requires a PGP key. Many dark websites are set up by scammers, who constantly move around to avoid the wrath of their victims. Even commerce sites that may have existed for a year or more can suddenly disappear if the owners decide to cash in and flee with the escrow money they’re holding on behalf of customers.
Aside from being isolated from the everyday internet, most of the Tor network isn’t indexed, rendering it invisible to search engines. Some portions of the deep web allow users to overcome legal restrictions to access content that is not lawfully available in their geographical location. It is even possible to illegally download movies, music, and other digital media without paying for it. Naturally, these lawless segments of the deep web are rife with malware and other cyber threats. Fentanyl sales on the dark web have been a major focus of U.S. law enforcement.
To be honest, it’s best to use the Tor browser on your desktop and not your smartphone. The official Torproject website does give you the option to download a .apk file for Android and gives a link to the official Tor app for Android, but there’s not such a thing for iOS. We would not recommend you to use the app that you’ve donwloaded. We would recommend that, anyone who wants to browse the Dark Web, installs both Tor and a VPN on their desktop. Download Tor from the official website, not just via some app in the app store. Also download a good VPN, such as NordVPN, and turn it on before you use the Tor browser.
