So-called ‘Dark Web’ sites, which are the hotbed of crime, were hit by an international hacker group, Ananimus.

According to a March report released by OnionScan, the dark web analysis, observation organization, on March 19, the number of dark webs, which hit nearly 30,000 last year, has dropped to 4,400 recently. That means 85% of the world``s dark webs are gone. The result of this analysis is that it is crucial that an unidentified "Freedom Hosting II" hosting a dark web site is paralyzed by Anonymous group. Freedom Hosting 2 was originally supposed to host 15 to 20% of the world``s dark web, but the number of dark webs has vanished and the real impact has been much greater.

When it was announced in February that Freedom Hosting 2 was serving more than 50% of the world``s child pornography sites, Anonymous began a hacking attack. Most of the sites with the largest databases (DBs) on the site that actually hosted Freedom Hosting 2 were found to be child porn sites.

According to Sarah J. Lewis, a freelance security analyst who has written this report, said, ‘Most of the top 20 products sold are drugs and illegal porn,’ according to an analysis of the well-known Dark Web Hansa Market. The US, UK, Netherlands, Canada, and China are their main target and they have a distribution network that delivers items to every corner of the world.’

Dark Web is a site where personal information, hacking tools, illegal pornography, drugs and weapons are traded. For a dark web connection, users should use a specific web browser such as ‘Tor’. Encryption and connection IP anonymization techniques, such as washing, cannot identify users or servers in a common way, and is used mainly for crime.


In fact, police have arrested more than 80 people who traded drugs through the Dark Web last year. It is also difficult to trace and regulate the Dark Web itself, and it is more difficult to detect related criminals because most of the transactions are made up of virtual coins.

Therefore, Korea is also trying to respond to the dark web at the government level. The National Police Agency recently confirmed the development of the ‘Dark Net Crime Information and Analysis’ technology proposed by the Ministry of Creation Science as a development project. Police are planning to automatically collect criminal information from the dark net and develop technology to secure investigation leads such as criminal IP by analyzing access program.

By Lee Gyung Tak kt87@


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