The Social Organization of Actors in Stolen Data Markets

Holt, Thomas J.; Smirnova, Olga; Chua, Yi-Ting

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-58904-0_4

Cited by 2 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…While not all the contents and goods posted on these forums are illegal, their origin or use may be. Interacting within these communities can be a stepping stone towards more serious online criminal activities [18,20,21]. For example, following the leak of the Mirai source code, DDoS attacks have used this botnet and its variants [2].…”

Section: Scraping Underground Forumsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…converting bitcoin to PayPal) can be used for money laundering [35]. Other illicit activities include trading online stolen accounts [18], hacking Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games for profit [13], or advertising booter services, technically offered as "Service Stress Tools", but which are actually used for DDoS attacks [41].…”

Section: Scraping Underground Forumsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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CrimeBB

Pastrana

Thomas

Hutchings

et al. 2018

Proceedings of the 2018 World Wide Web Conference on World Wide Web - WWW '18

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Underground forums allow criminals to interact, exchange knowledge, and trade in products and services. They also provide a pathway into cybercrime, tempting the curious to join those already motivated to obtain easy money. Analysing these forums enables us to better understand the behaviours of offenders and pathways into crime. Prior research has been valuable, but limited by a reliance on datasets that are incomplete or outdated. More complete data, going back many years, allows for comprehensive research into the evolution of forums and their users. We describe CrimeBot, a crawler designed around the particular challenges of capturing data from underground forums. CrimeBot is used to update and maintain CrimeBB, a dataset of more than 48m posts made from 1m accounts in 4 different operational forums over a decade. This dataset presents a new opportunity for large-scale and longitudinal analysis using up-to-date information. We illustrate the potential by presenting a case study using CrimeBB, which analyses which activities lead new actors into engagement with cybercrime. CrimeBB is available to other academic researchers under a legal agreement, designed to prevent misuse and provide safeguards for ethical research. CCS CONCEPTS• Information systems → Web crawling; • Security and privacy → Social aspects of security and privacy;

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Section: Scraping Underground Forumsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Scraping Underground Forumsmentioning

confidence: 99%

CrimeBB

Pastrana

Thomas

Hutchings

et al. 2018

Proceedings of the 2018 World Wide Web Conference on World Wide Web - WWW '18

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Stolen data : including data from credit cards, bank accounts, PayPal accounts, and identity documents (Chu, Holt, & Ahn, 2010; Franklin et al, 2007; Holt & Lampke, 2009; Holt & Smirnova, 2014; Holt, Smirnova, Chua, & Copes, 2015; Honeynet Research Alliance, 2003; Leukfeldt, Kleemans, & Stol, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c; Motoyama et al, 2013; Peretti, 2008; Soudijn & Zegers, 2012; Thomas & Martin, 2006; Wehinger, 2011).…”

Section: Prior Research On Cybercriminal Meeting Placesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cybercriminal tools : including phishing kits, malware, hacking tools, and botnets (Chu et al, 2010; Décary-Hétu & Dupont, 2012; Franklin et al, 2007; Herley & Florencio, 2009; Holt & Lampke, 2009; Holt & Smirnova, 2014; Honeynet Research Alliance, 2003; Leukfeldt, 2014; Leukfeldt et al, 2017a, 2017b; Soudijn & Zegers, 2012; Thomas & Martin, 2006).…”

Section: Prior Research On Cybercriminal Meeting Placesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is assumed that these online meeting places originate from public Internet Relay Chat channels (Franklin, Paxson, Perrig, & Savage, 2007; Thomas & Martin, 2006) and have been developed to open or closed Internet forums with sometimes thousands of members. Various studies show that there are numerous online cybercriminal meeting places on the Internet with varying longevity and audiences (Ablon, Libicki, & Golay, 2014; Holt & Lampke, 2009; Holt & Smirnova, 2014; Motoyama, McCoy, Levchenko, Savage, & Voelker, 2013; Soudijn & Zegers, 2012; Yip, Shadbolt, & Webber, 2012). Some forums have been online for years, while others disappeared after a few months.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Use of Online Crime Markets by Cybercriminal Networks: A View From Within

Leukfeldt

Kleemans²,

Stol

2017

American Behavioral Scientist

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In this article, we study the various functions of online cybercriminal meeting places from a unique perspective: We do not take the criminal meeting place as a starting point, but the users—the criminal networks. This allows not only for a view of what is happening on online meeting places, but it also places online meeting places into perspective. Our data consisted of detailed case descriptions of 40 cybercriminal networks active in the Netherlands (18), Germany (3), the United Kingdom (9), and the United States (10). Reconstructions were made based on analysis of police files and/or interviews with case officers and public prosecutors. Online meeting places play a role in the majority of our cases: to meet co-offenders, to buy tools, or to sell data. However, from a crime script perspective, the role of forums is much more modest. Forums, for example, can be used to find suitable co-offenders, but in the majority of our cases the core members did not meet at forums. Offline meeting places still play an important role in cybercriminal networks. Furthermore, forums can be viewed as online versions of offline offender convergence settings—physical locations such as a bar—where criminals can meet, and ensure continuity and structure. However, forums might be more accessible than physical criminal meeting places. For a curious newbie, it is, for example, easier to visit all sorts of forums than it is to visit all sorts of criminal bars. Finally, our cases show that the learning function of forums should not be underestimated.

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The Social Organization of Actors in Stolen Data Markets

Cited by 2 publications

References 13 publications

CrimeBB

CrimeBB

The Use of Online Crime Markets by Cybercriminal Networks: A View From Within

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