We reached out recently to Clive Temond, editor in chief at https://darkweburls.com to discuss what he predicts for 2023 in the dark web space. Here are his thoughts:

1. Rise of Niche Marketplaces: Dark web markets catering to specific niches, such as drugs, weapons, and stolen data, will continue to emerge. These marketplaces may offer more specialized goods and services and may require membership or referral to access.
2. Increased Scrutiny from Law Enforcement: As dark web markets continue to grow, law enforcement agencies will increase their efforts to shut them down. This may lead to more arrests, seizures, and disruptions of the dark web ecosystem.
3. Cybersecurity Industry Growth: Dark web markets provide a platform for cybercriminals to buy and sell malware, exploit kits, and other tools for cyberattacks. As the sophistication of these tools increases, so does the risk of cyberattacks. Companies will invest heavily in these areas as threats of AI-related attacks begin to emerge.

 

 

Tor Browser — The Safest Way to Surf the Dark Web

There are numerous reasons for wanting to visit the dark web — curiosity, finding or spreading information, or buying items that aren’t legal in your country. But how do you reach this hidden part of the internet if your Chrome doesn’t allow it? Let us introduce you to Tor — the browser that lets you access the dark web.

What Is Tor?

Tor, otherwise known as The Onion Router, is a fully encrypted network of volunteer relays across the globe. These relays route users’ internet connections, allowing them to access websites completely anonymously.

The process is similar to peeling an onion. To get to the core, or the website you’re searching for, you have to first “peel” off several relays. Since they are purposefully scattered around the world, your privacy remains intact — but the connection speed may suffer. However, that’s only a small setback you have to accept when browsing the dark web.

As an additional level of protection, Tor URLs don’t end in .com. Instead, they use .onion and are usually a string of numbers and letters that are difficult to remember. On top of that, many websites change their URLs regularly in order to stay hidden.

Is Tor Legal?

Using the Tor browser is legal — after all, you can use it for browsing the surface web as well. In addition, surfing the dark web isn’t illegal either, as long as you obey your country’s laws.

However, the dark web has a bad reputation, and by extension, so does Tor. Using it alone can raise some eyebrows, even if your activity on the browser can’t be traced. That’s why we always recommend getting a good VPN and turning it on every time you browse with Tor.

How to Download and Install Tor

There’s a guide here, but before you start downloading the Tor browser, make sure to turn on your VPN. That way, no one will even know you own it, so you can begin your dark web explorations completely anonymously.

Follow the prompts that the installation wizard gives you, and once you’re done, open the ‘Start Tor Browser’ file. A new window will pop up, asking you whether you want to connect or configure. Click the ‘Connect’ button to open the browser.

Tor automatically uses the DuckDuckGo search engine, which offers more privacy, but doesn’t actually search the dark web. In fact, typing keywords in DuckDuckGo will take you to the same sites you see when using Chrome or Firefox.

However, there are search engines that will allow you to access the dark web. Candle, not Evil and Welcome to Dark Web Links are some of the most popular ones — but there are many others out there.

In Conclusion

The Tor browser is a perfect tool for surfing the dark web, as it protects your privacy and keeps you anonymous. Still, leaks aren’t impossible, so be sure to always use a VPN and stay safe!

Everyone is naturally worried about their security online. With email being used for a large portion of modern communication, keeping your email password secure should be a priority. If you want to know how email password hacking works, you can read about common methods here.Before we get started you can rest slightly better knowing that hacking doesn’t work like Hollywood makes it work. The truth is that email password hacking takes much more time and is fairly boring in practice. The most likely abuser is just a spammer looking for emails to use in a botnet.

Regardless, you do want to protect your email password from these people and also protect your contacts and private information from entering the wrong hands. In order to understand how to protect yourself, I’ll cover the basic methods of email password hacking and then cover the best methods of email protection.This is the method that is always shown in the movies. Someone can pull up the login screen, pull up a little program and then run through all available passwords in a few seconds and find their password. Naturally this isn’t how it really works.

This method is called “brute force.” It runs through all possible passwords. It’s like trying to open a combination lock by going “1-1-1…1-1-2.” Note that this can take a really long time unless they have a very powerful network. There are ten numbers and 26 letters that can be used along with a lot of symbols that can be thrown in. Passwords generally have to be 8 characters or more. Ignoring the mess that symbols create, it would take 36^8, or 2,821,109,907,456 attempts to go through all available combinations. So yes, it will take awhile to actually do this unless they’re using a few supercomputers, in which case you’d be far below their radar. They would also have to be careful to not have their IP address flagged for a high number of attempts. It’s not uncommon for a site to just lock an account down after a few failed attempts in a short period, since it just assumes that a crack attempt is occurring. Again, a botnet can overcome this, but people with such a network usually have more important things to do or lucrative jobs stopping hackers.

There are also programs that just run through the dictionary. They’re much quicker but they can fail as long as you throw a number into the email password.Naturally there are some exploits that come out that allow a quick hack. Sometimes source code is compromised too. Thankfully any good email provider will try to stay on top of these security exploits and close them as quickly as possible. The truth is that email password hacking is usually due to more mundane and non-hacking methods.

If you’re wondering about the most likely culprit for hacking someone’s email password, then it’s probably just standard malware. There isn’t much of a trick to this either. Malware can get onto a computer through the user downloading a malicious program without realizing it. It can also slip onto the computer through exploits in browsers, usually through loopholes from viewing banner ads and pictures. If the user has malware protection in place then it will hopefully be caught.

If not, the malware might capture some information. Trojans and keyloggers are both able to do this. A Trojan acts as a backdoor and allows another person to hijack a computer. This can let them simply log onto the email and change the password or steal it as if they had physical access. Keyloggers just record information and broadcast it to their master. They then read through the captured information and look for login information. Usually they’re interested in things like Paypal or banking information, but an email password can be a good starting point.