Analysis of Security Mechanisms of Dark Web Markets

As the name implies, the dark web market - also commonly known as the anonymous market - has put measures for protecting the privacy of its users as a key priority. With the rapid growth of the dark web market, competition between markets has become more intense. With this, malicious attacks between competitors - for instance, aimed at reducing the availability of competitors' services - have also become more common. These attacks not only affect the services' availability and accessibility, but they may also cause some personal and private information being leaked. As such, it is understandable that dark web markets may implement security mechanisms to protect themselves and their users. Although the literature has analysed and described dark web markets from multiple perspectives, there is still a gap in understanding the security mechanisms implemented by different dark web markets. Furthermore, data collection - which is often considered a common challenge in this research area - may be hindered by these security mechanisms. Therefore, the study presented in this paper aims to investigate the security mechanisms of various dark web markets systematically, in order to shed a better light on their operation. To achieve this aim, we performed data collection and experiments in twelve existing dark web markets, using them as information sources. Although data collection practices slightly vary for each market, the data was collected over a span of four months between May and August 2023. We found there are two main groups of security mechanisms used in dark web markets: web security and account security. Web security contains accessibility, waiting queue, anti-phishing, CAPTCHAs, secret phrase, warrant canary, bug bounty, rate limiting and a toolset. Account security contains username requirement, password & PIN requirement, mnemonic, multi-factor authentication (MFA) and account kill-switch. In conclusion, different types of security mechanisms used by the market may reflect the operator's business philosophy, which in turn may affect the way the market operates. The results of this study can help the academic and security research communities to understand the operation and evolution of the dark web markets better, which in turn can be used to combat crimes facilitated by these markets more effectively. Additionally, findings from this study may provide clues on how to improve the efficiency of data collection in this environment.