Upside Down: Exploring the Ecosystem of Dark Web Data Markets

Abstract

Large-scale dark web marketplaces have been around for more than a decade. So far, academic research has mainly focused on drug and hacking-related offers. However, data markets remain understudied, especially given their volatile nature and distinct characteristics based on shifting iterations. In this paper, we perform a large-scale study on dark web data markets. We first characterize data markets by using an innovative theoretical legal taxonomy based on the Council of Europe's Cybercrime Convention and its implementation in Dutch law. The recent Covid-19 pandemic showed that cybercrime has become more prevalent with the increase of digitalization in society. In this context, important questions arise regarding how cybercrime harms are determined, measured, and prioritized. We propose a determination of harm based on criminal law qualifications and sanctions. We also address the empirical question of what the economic activity on data markets looks like nowadays by performing a comprehensive measurement of digital goods based on an original dataset scraped from twelve marketplaces consisting of approximately 28,000 offers from 642 vendors. The resulting analysis combines insights from the theoretical legal framework and the results of the measurement study. To our knowledge, this is the first study to combine these two elements systematically.