My 30-Day Journey on a Dark Web Marketplace That Belonged to a Cyber Gang

As I sat in my chair, I began to ponder the locations for adequate cybersecurity intelligence sites related to dark web activity. There are numerous articles published all the time, and they are good sources, but I wanted something that was going to be real-time and push the boundaries of my comfort zone. My mind began to race with ideas, but nothing surfaced that satisfied the concept I had. As time progressed, I had an idea. If I wanted the "latest and greatest intel," I needed to go where all the cybercriminals go to sell data and communicate about attacks. That's why I joined a dark web marketplace. Don't worry, though, because I was only there for the comments. I found the marketplace I was interested in through technical white papers and word of mouth. It was a place where a lot of recent data breaches were sold, breaches such as AT&T, Home Depot, and many others. It was also the home of a notorious hacker who was responsible for many of the data breaches mentioned. I was able to deduce all this information due to a feature that was a part of the marketplace called "The ShoutBox." This feature is where all the members and guests use as a chat to talk about everything... and I mean everything. With all the incoming chats in the Shoutbox, I knew I had found my place to hide... my place to watch the comments.