Join Huntress' John Hammond & Dave Kleinatland on a Journey of the Dark Web

This report surveys the dark web ecosystem—covering forums and markets like XSS, Exploit, and BreachForums—explaining onion routing, bulletproof hosting, pay-to-play access, and trades in credentials, access, and malware. It highlights forum norms and marketing tactics, notes recent developments (Europol action against XSS and a claimed law-enforcement compromise of BreachForums), and examines ransomware name-and-shame leak sites such as Play that use countdowns, FAQs, and pressure to extort victims. The piece underscores how these venues reveal evolving threat-actor operations and TTPs useful for defender intelligence.