The people of BRICS countries are most familiar with the dark web.
While the dark web only comprises an estimated 5 percent of the entire Internet, it has an alarming 2.7 million daily users (as of April) and an alarming amount of illegal activity being performed.
While the dark web only comprises an estimated 5 percent of the entire Internet, it has an alarming 2.7 million daily users (as of April) and an alarming amount of illegal activity, a report has warned.
While its intended purpose is to give people access to a censorship-free internet where they cannot be tracked by governments or any other parties, data obtained by niche news publisher BanklessTimes.com revealed that 56.8 percent are actually on the dark web. The activities are illegal in some way.
“Thus, it is estimated that more than half of the 2.5 million daily dark web visitors in 2023 will have participated in illegal activities. Even more worryingly, this number is growing, with the figure expected to increase from 200,000 to 2.7 million daily dark web users by April 2023,” the report said.
People from BRICS countries are most familiar with the dark web – accounting for 28 per cent of those who cite familiarity with it.
Latin America and the Asia Pacific region were second with 26 percent of respondents claiming some familiarity with the dark net. The report said the Middle East and Africa were at 23 per cent, while the global average was 24 per cent.
There are a variety of functions on the dark net and some individuals use it for more legitimate reasons such as citizens in different countries looking to access uncensored information, or to help researchers find the right data.
The dark web market is listed with various illegal goods and services. The most listed items on the market are PayPal account logins – with 50 accounts in 2022 costing only $200.
Another popular product on offer are hacked crypto accounts which are becoming more affordable.
The report states that the price of Kraken verified accounts dropped from $810 in 2021 to just $250 in 2022, and Coinbase’s similarly dropped from $610 to $120.
Direct “high-quality” malware attacks against someone in Europe cost $1,800 per 1,000 installs, while in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia, “medium-quality” attacks, with a 70 percent success rate, cost $1,200 per 1,000 installs.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – IANS,
