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AlphaBay now only accepts the cryptocurrency Monero, and heavily promotes that users access it via I2P instead of Tor, calling their Tor services “mirrors” to the main I2P eepsite. DeSnake’s detailed instructions for installing I2P on Dread fail to mention the potential risks of peer discovery and de-anonymization through known techniques like Eclipse and Sybil attacks in conjunction with flood-fill takeovers. Interestingly, the last known Monero-I2P-centric market was Liberitas, which went offline in June 2019 after a very short stint on the I2P network. The overt exclusion of CIS countries is peculiar, especially given that DeSnake and alpha02 were openly active in Russian carding communities.
At its height, AlphaBay’s daily sales ranged between $600,000 and $800,000 USD across 300,000 listings for illicit goods, offered by over 40,000 vendors and viewed by some 200,000 users. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces the takedown of AlphaBay, a massive darknet marketplace “used to sell deadly illegal drugs” and procure stolen and counterfeit goods, according to the Justice Department. He delivered the news to reporters in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. Most dark web marketplaces also operate alternative forums. AlphaBay forum is a place where the community; administrators, buyers and vendors come together to talk, share and discuss. AlphaBay is a legendary dark web marketplace which was by the FBI’s own words the biggest darknet marketplace to have ever existed.
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Even if you do not reach an agreement with the vendor, you would know where you stand or you would have tried certain options like reshipping/replacement of goods. The system has been designed to ensure quick resolution if needed by moderator by looking at what has already happened. If for some reason, at any given time ADR does not work for you and you can not reach an agreement or simply refuse how to find the dark web to use it at all, there is always an available moderator to look into it in less than 24 hours. Bulletproof servers network and automatic server reconfiguration and deployment in a matter of minutes, based on the AlphaGuard system. Almost all of our servers are kept in locations with high amount of armed guards and multiple security protocols to pass through before accessing the server racks.
From heightened risks to increased regulations, senior leaders at all levels are pressured to improve their organizations’ risk management capabilities. The FBI and DEA have seized cryptocurrency wallets tied to Cazes containing bitcoins, ethereum, monero and zcash collectively worth more than $6.5 million, while his financial statements said he had $770,000 in cash on hand. Authorities say Cazes amassed about $23 million from AlphaBay, thanks to the site charging a commission of 2 percent to 4 percent on every transaction, and he spent the money freely. But Monsegur has claimed that his identity had been compromised and shared with the Feds long before then, thanks to his having participated in a group that waged “war” against EFnet, which was once the largest IRC network. While practicing good OPSEC, including compartmentation – keeping personal and illegal identities separated – might work in crime thrillers, in real life it appears to be tough to practice.
At the time, AlphaBay was considered to be one of the most popular and comprehensive darknet marketplaces, selling a wide array of illicit and illegal products and services. The focus was on vendors and buyers who were actively involved in the online trade of illegal commodities including drugs, weapons and explosives, forged documents, and cyber crime tools. Analysis of the results and dissemination of the resultant intelligence is ongoing. AlphaBay’s quick growth—or regrowth—has been fueled in part by what Gray calls “the Great Cyber Resignation.” At least 10 dark web markets have dropped offline for various reasons in the last 18 months.
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Cazes, 25, apparently took his life a week later while in Thai custody, the justice department said. He faced charges relating to narcotics distribution, identity theft, money laundering and related crimes. Prior to today’s bust, Jones said Hansa market and Dream Market were the contenders. “Most significant vendors now have a foot in each market so other than the loss of any escrow balances, most I imagine will not be hugely affected,” he said.
As soon as authorities shut down AlphaBay, sellers began migrating to other sites, according to Kela Targeted Cyber Intelligence, a Tel Aviv company that specializes in monitoring the dark net. The so-called dark net is a part of the internet that can only be accessed by specialized software or hardware and contains clandestine websites not found through normal search engines. The intelligence yielded by the Hansa operation “has given us a new insight into the criminal activity of the darknet, including many of its leading figures,” Wainwright said. One of properties of AlphaBay founder Alexandre Cazes is seen in Bangkok, Thailand, July 21, 2017. The young Canadian Cazes accused of masterminding AlphaBay, the world’s leading “darknet” internet marketplace, lived an apparently quiet life for nearly two years with his Thai girlfriend in a middle-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Bangkok.
In a clever move, the FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency appear to have timed the AlphaBay takedown so Thai police could catch Cazes in the process of attempting to restore the site. Likewise, a 2008 post to a French-language online tech forum called “” by a user named “Alpha02” included the name “Alexandre Cazes” and the aforementioned Hotmail address. Moreover, what if law enforcement officials are using the AB PGP keys to lure in unsuspecting victims in a similar fashion to the way Hansa was seized? There are many instances throughout history that show global LE has worked undercover to catch bigger fish.
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As long as there is value in data, we must take steps to secure it. We’ve already seen evidence of customers quickly migrating to new markets, with some struggling to keep up with the influx of users. Hansa, which has been operated by law enforcement since June 20, saw a large influx of AlphaBay users flock to its services. On July 17, law enforcement halted registrations to deal with the large migration. Meanwhile, Europol provided Dutch law enforcement authorities with a lead on Hansa Market that would allow them to identify the site’s administrators and locate its servers in Lithuania, Germany and the Netherlands. AlphaBay and Hansa were two of the top three criminal markets on the dark Web, sites that sprang up in the wake of drug market Silk Road’s takedown in 2013.
Yet, it wouldn’t be the AlphaBay we know and respect if it didn’t offer a variety of its own unique solutions. Surely, the dark web world has changed a lot since the AlphaBay’s demise in 2017. Coming back with the same agenda would be immature, to say the least. Luckily, the current owner of the platform has a unique and ambitious mission in mind. If you’re an old-school darknet user, you, probably, already know what the legend says.
- Security metrics to manage and improve security operations.
- Where stolen databases have appeared on sites like Hansa, we assessed it to be highly likely that these datasets were previously traded widely through other criminal networks and then listed on these marketplaces only once their value had been exhausted.
- On June 20, as German police arrested Hansa’s two German administrators in Germany, Dutch law enforcement authorities moved to seize control of the site.
- For best ways to unlink coins even further, refer to our Forum for latest guideliness.
We do not want to integrate swappers from bitcoin to monero or other currencies to monero. If we do, we would be exposing not only parts of our infrastructure to make the trades but potentially enable LE to halt trades or freeze balances which would result in bad situations for our customers. It is a serious risk which the amateur admins of many of todays most popular marketplaces ignore or are too blind to see only to make a small profit. Set the ‘industry standards’ with our innovations as we did in the past and mold the future towards a more sustainable model. In addition we want to use our experience in counter-surveillance, counter-signal intelligence and operational security knowledge to teach users, vendors and future darknet admins what they could do to keep themselves and their lives free from Law Enforcement.
Then there was the so-called AB Kingpin Alexandre Cazes who was arrested by Thailand police. It was assumed, that Cazes was or played the role of the AB administrator dubbed “Desnake.” However, Cazes was found dead in his cell after his arrest in Thailand. AlphaBay is a principle-driven, vision oriented and community centered marketplace and Forum for all black market items. It boasts of mature management, unparalleled security, 24/7 professional & well-trained Staff. It is the marketplace which introduced most features you see today on other places such as sticky listing, featured listings, autoshops, monero as a payment, PGP-signed addresses, shared account access for vendors and so on.
Even while this isn’t precisely a red flag, the market is attempting to resurrect a darknet brand name that has had a rocky start. Alphabay market currently down please choose another market from the darknet markets list. Following today’s breaking news about U.S. and international authorities taking down the competing Dark Web drug bazaars AlphaBay and Hansa Market, KrebsOnSecurity caught up with the Dutch investigators who took over Hansa on June 20, 2017. When U.S. authorities shuttered AlphaBay on July 5, police in The Netherlands saw a massive influx of AlphaBay refugees who were unwittingly fleeing directly into the arms of investigators. What follows are snippets from an exclusive interview with Petra Haandrikman, team leader of the Dutch police unit that infiltrated Hansa. Dutch police said they’d seized more than 1,000 bitcoins, worth around $2.6 million had been seized during the Hansa operation.
“This is the largest dark net marketplace takedown in history,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in remarks prepared for a news conference Thursday in Washington, D.C. Following its creation in December 2014, AlphaBay dark web websites app emerged as an heir to the Silk Road, the online marketplace closed by federal authorities in October 2013. Both sites were accessible via Tor, a network that takes steps to preserve the anonymity of its users.
Alphabay Market is the leading darkweb market out there, so naturally, an abundance of services have been laid out for the users. I need not emphasize how important versus darknet market “security” on a dark net market is. With all the scammers and rippers out there, it’s important that the market you choose has top-notch security.
In the Hansa case, Dutch LE officers with partners from Germany, Lithuania, the U.S., and Europol infiltrated Hansa from the inside for more than a month collecting information on every participant. Haven’t been able to get onto the market since about February 9th-10th. Even learned how to use I2P for the first time and that won’t work either. Default privacy for buyers makes all profiles private by default. When you make a purchase, only your purchase history will be shared to the vendor.
