Exploring Differences among Darknet and Surface Internet Hacking Communities

Zhiyuan Ding, Victor Benjamin, Weifeng Li, Xueyan Yin

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Cyber-threat intelligence (CTI) has matured into its own industry within recent years. CTI efforts frequently involve scrutinizing data within Darknet communities to understand emerging threats. Many hackers within the Darknet share knowledge and other information through a variety of formats, including video. At the same time, many hackers are also making use of the 'surface' Internet and traditional video-sharing platforms to disseminate hacking knowledge. Gleaning intelligence from the Darknet can be a very laborious and costly task, raising the question of how meaningful and valuable are the hacker patterns that can be observed on the surface Internet. Extant research contains no studies that compare and contrast hacking videos uploaded to the Darknet versus those uploaded to traditional Internet communities. In this research-in-progress, a testbed of hacking videos is constructed by sourcing videos from a popular video-sharing website, as well as several Darknet forums. The testbed is scrutinized to understand differences in how the populations of users watching such videos respond to them, and whether there are any unique engagement patterns that emerge within the Darknet and surface Internet populations. The results of this work serve to justify further investigations into the hacker knowledge gap between the Darknet and the traditional Internet.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2021 IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics, ISI 2021
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
ISBN (Electronic)9781665438384
DOIs
StatePublished - 2021
Event19th Annual IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics, ISI 2021 - Virtual, Online, United States
Duration: Nov 2 2021Nov 3 2021

Publication series

NameProceedings - 2021 IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics, ISI 2021

Conference

Conference19th Annual IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics, ISI 2021
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityVirtual, Online
Period11/2/2111/3/21

Keywords

  • Cybersecurity
  • Darknet
  • Video Analytics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Information Systems
  • Information Systems and Management
  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality

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