A criminal presence is growing within the obfuscated layers ofthe most mysterious part of the internet, and this remains to be a growing concern to governments all over the world. But how does this network of dark web criminals affect legitimate businesses in and outside of the internet?
Darknet Marketplaces
The year 2011 marked the launch of the first modern market on the dark web. Ross Ulbricht’s Silk Road marketplace was a trailblazer and a herald for numerous replicas—some much more resilient, others destined to crumble under pressures from both law enforcement and other criminal threats. But to date, marketplaces make up a significant percentage of the dark web’s composition.
Along with the upsurge in criminal activity, the Silk Road introduced a new business model that previously only existed in theory. It was the first decentralized platform where free trade was the order of the day. Paired with the ever-versatile Bitcoin, the dark web’s primary mode of financial transaction, the start of the first darknet market was also the beginning of the death of the traditional business model.
But the dark web was bad for business from the start. Not only did it attract drug lords, weapons merchants and pedophiles; it also opened doors to a much less restrictive marketplace where government intervention was non-existent.
Prescription medication that would take months to acquire could now be shipped covertly right to your doorstep. Weapons that required piles of certifications could now be bought and distributed cheaply under the government’s nose while they remained none the wiser. Before long, the dark web had attracted a large audience of people looking for various goods and services that legitimate businesses were unable to provide, due to matters of legality or costs.
Safe to say, the more darknet businesses thrive, the more legitimate businesses feel the pressure to compete with an ungoverned trade system that is far more versatile and adaptive than they ever will be.
Cyber Crime
Only recently, cyber security experts at Kaspersky Lab revealed that cyber criminals are reaping immense benefits by offering DDoS attacks as a service for ridiculously small fees, according to DarkWebNews.com. While the focus of the report was how much these criminals were raking in on an hourly basis, an unexplored facet was the impact of such a development to normal businesses all over the world.
A report released by cyber security firm CGI revealed that U.K. businesses have lost 42 billion euros of their investors’ money since 2013 due to a total of 315 hacking attacks, 65 of which were rated “catastrophic.”
According to the study, a severe data breach not only depletes the financial and informational reserves of a company, it also results in the permanent dropping of share prices by an average of 1.8 percent.
On average, the affected businesses lost about 120 million euros after every breach.
Today, an internet outage translates to thousands of dollars lost for the average business. The insurgence of crime as a service is as damaging to businesses, which are often the targets of these ordered hits, as it is to online security in general.
The dark web is littered with stolen information from businesses such as PayPal and Amazon, and even more crucial information from credit card companies and other legitimate businesses in the real world. It has made it easier to irreparably cripple businesses regardless of whether the motives are financially driven or otherwise.
The Brighter Side of the Dark Web
There is a silver lining to every dark cloud, and the dark web is no exception. Despite the mostly negative impact it has had on some businesses, the unexplored part of the internet has expanded the market for current businesses even further.
Businesses can now capitalize on this unexplored market thanks to the availability of dark web site creation services offered by the likes of the U.K.-based Dogsbody Technology and the onion site creation tool Enterprise Onion Toolkit (EOTK), created by security researcher Alec Muffett.
Furthermore, security businesses are experiencing a boon season due to the increasing demand for better cyber security products and services. The increase in cyber crime is resulting in exponential growth for the cyber security industry that is constantly working to counter new attacks and patch up new vulnerabilities in security systems before they can be exploited.
