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Dark marketplace AlphaBay taken down

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 19 Jul 2017

On 6 July, AlphaBay, a notorious online marketplace that sold contraband via the Dark Web, was taken offline following law enforcement raids in the US, Canada and Thailand.

During the takedown, servers were seized, and one Canadian national, Alexander Cazes, was arrested in Thailand.

Subsequently, it was reported by the Sydney Morning Herald that Cazes, one of AlphaBay's founders, was found dead in a suspected suicide in a Bangkok jail cell.

Dark Web marketplaces, such as AlphaBay and the notorious Silk Road, are only accessible via 'anonymising' software Tor, and allow the selling of practically anything.

Offline or closed?

Once the site that sells drugs, counterfeit products, instructions for making bombs, firearms and other illegal goods, went offline, AlphaBay users, unaware the servers had been seized, speculated it was an "exit scam" aimed at stealing their money.

However, a staff member posted on Reddit, denying the company had done a runner, claiming the downtime was due to a server update, and adding AlphaBay would be back online soon.

According to reports, following the take down, the Dark Web trade has fallen into a temporary state of turmoil, with users trying to find other marketplaces to carry out their nefarious dealings.

Further investigations

Although AlphaBay being taken down may seem like good news, Ilia Kolochenko, CEO of Web security company High-Tech Bridge, asks whether it is for the best in the long run, saying the Dark Web gives an illusion of safety and anonymity to many inexperienced users.

According to Kolochenko, on the one hand this case shows there is no safe harbour for cyber crime marketplaces operating globally. "Users erroneously believe that Bitcoin or Tor can assure their anonymity, but this assumption is wrong. There are many other ways to trace and unmask them via weaknesses in tangential technologies, or just by using social engineering or even their own garrulity against them."

He believes the takedown could be bad in the long run. "I think other illegal marketplaces will quickly learn the lesson and take all measures to secure their platforms and operators. We will probably see many new smaller places restricted only to 'trusted' sellers and verified buyers. This will seriously impede any further investigation and police raids."

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