Dark Web Update: Europol, Police Seize Wall Street Market

Three men were arrested in Germany, suspected of running the second largest Dark Web Market, Wall Street Market. A global police operation led by Europol tracked traders moving from Silkkitie, also known as “Valhalla Marketplace”, to Wall Street Market, which lead to the arrests and subsequent site takedown. Finnish authorities seized Valhalla earlier this year in a coordinated global operation.

Recommendations:

• Update Cyber Attack Chatter rules to alert on potential new markets being advertised on social media. As with other high profile Dark Web takedowns, users will often migrate to other markets
• Continuously scan for mentions of your organization via the ZeroFOX platform on Dark Web data sources
• If you do not have Dark Web enabled, please reach out to your ZeroFOX Account Manager for more information

Details

Wall Street Market was one of the largest Dark Web Marketplaces, available only via the Tor network. It had over 1.1 million users and about 5,400 vendors, with primarily centered on the sale of narcotics, but also stolen data and malware. Police tracked users and vendors moving to Wall Street Market from Valhalla, another recently shutdown Dark Web marketplace for similar goods and services. Several European and US agencies worked in a global, coordinated effort to track activity and identify actors, leading to the arrests and seizures of €550k in cash and “six-digit” amounts of Bitcoin and Monero. In addition to the three suspects, two of the highest-selling drug dealers were arrested in Los Angeles.