Dark Web is a place on internet which can’t be accessed directly, you need special software and configurations for access. Why? you might ask, well its because in this part of world wide web, illegal stuff happens. There are sites that sell drugs, hacking software, counterfeit money and more.
Ironically, Dark Web was hacked recently, when a group related to Anonymous took down about 20 percent of the sites. The attack was made on hosting service Freedom Hosting II (FH2) and compromised over 10,000 Tor-based pages.
Security researcher Sarah Jamie Lewis, says that the hacker allegedly took down the sites because they contained child pornography. The hosting provider usually provides 256MB data for each site, but for these sites almost 30 GB data was provided. Indicating the hosting administration knew about them..
21 Steps to Hack:
The hacker got access by creating a new Freedom Hosting II site or logging into a current one. Tweaking some settings in a configuration file, manually triggering a password reset for a target. Turning on root access, and then logging back in with new system privileges.
The hacker has released a dump of system files from Freedom Hosting II, but not user data as it contains sensitive material.
According to the report more than 10,000 websites were affected with the hack, many were personal or political blogs and forums.
The group has offered to sell the compromised data back to Freedom Hosting II in exchange for 0.1 bitcoin, or just over $100.
Vigilantes Taking Down Child Abusers:
This trend isn’t new, vigilantes and hacktivist groups like Anonymous are very active on Dark Web taking down child pornography sites. They collect evidence against international paedophile rings and their abuse of children.
On the other hand, law enforcement agencies like FBI are also trying to identify individual users involved in illegal activities on Dark Web by deploying malware.
