The state of the cybercriminal marketplace landscape following the Empire Market exit scam
Digital Shadows has analyzed the cybercriminal marketplace landscape following the Empire Market exit scam. The company’s research has identified a number of currently available dark web marketplaces popular within the cybercriminal community. Noting the impact of the closure of Empire Market, some marketplaces, such as Icarus Market, have seen a major spike in listings, from 25,000 to 35,000 in the last month.
The table below includes a subset of the currently available dark web marketplaces assessed to be popular within the cybercriminal community. The highlighted features indicate factors that cybercriminals may consider when choosing a new market. Some of these were included in a guide published on the dark web community forum Dread covering desired features for a dark web marketplace. According to the guide, a good marketplace should have compulsory multisig and PGP verification and competitive vendor bond rates - terminologies covered in the definitions list below. Digital Shadows also added a few more considerations that they think might play their part.