The Dark Web

Nearly everyone in today’s world has used the world wide web for something. Your using it right now to read this after all. We use it every day to get email, check sports scores, keep up with our friends, or shop online amongst other things. But there is a whole separate part of the web that is not as easily accessed by us mild-mannered citizens. Like with anything in society there is a dark, seedy underbelly where crime and lawlessness prevail and the web is no different. It is called the Dark Web. This is not to be confused with the Deep Web which is something that is hidden behind authentication like your email account.
Its very existence became news a few years ago when the FBI took down Silk Road and the narcotics business that it was engaged in. Now you and I cannot simply go to Google and try to access the sites of the Dark Web. They are hidden behind specialized software (something like Tor, etc.) and access control lists (don’t want the FBI poking around there now). The sites are controlled by botnets, which means they can change their information (the IP address but not the DNS address) automatically which makes tracking them difficult. Once you are able to gain access though you now are in the black market of the Internet. Here, for the right price, you can get a hold of stolen credit card information, drugs, illegal firearms, or just about anything else you could want. Since we focus on credit card information, we’ll stick to that.
Thieves get credit card information a number of ways but the most common is from the use of skimmers on ATMs and gas pumps. It is not uncommon for them to be able to collect hundreds if not thousands of credit card numbers or bank account numbers and to be on a plane out of the country by the time the skimming is discovered. Many thieves when they are tracked are from a former Eastern Bloc country or China and many of those countries do not have an extradition treaty with the U.S. making their eventual capture much more difficult.
The information can be either put up for sale or auctioned off eBay style to the highest bidder. With hundreds or thousands of numbers available this can be a very lucrative business for some. Also the more information the thief can obtain (i.e. personal information, purchasing habits), the more money they can sell the card for. The card is then cloned either by the purchaser or someone who provides that service on the Dark Web and they are now ready to go on a spending spree with your money. Many times the thieves will start with a few small purchases just to make sure the card is active and gradually move up to purchasing gift cards, which they can then convert into real goods and sell them in the open or return them for cash.
The good news is that while the average public knows very little about this, law enforcement does. The FBI, Europol, and many other law enforcement agencies and cyber-security experts are working extremely hard to combat this, and in many cases working together across borders. But in many cases the thieves are one step ahead. The best advice that can be given is for account balances to be checked as often as possible and for businesses to be vigilant for skimmers or any sign of a cyberattack and to take quick action.