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SUMMARY:Turning Up the Dial: the Evolution of a Cybercrime Market Through 
 Set-up\, Stable\, and Covid-19 Eras - Anh V. Vu\, University of Cambridge
DTSTART:20201023T150000Z
DTEND:20201023T160000Z
UID:TALK151942@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:J. Hughes
DESCRIPTION:Trust and reputation play a core role in underground cybercrim
 e markets\, where participants are anonymous and there is little legal rec
 ourse for dispute arbitration. These underground markets exist in tension 
 between two opposing forces: the drive to hide incriminating information\,
  and the trust and stability benefits that greater openness yields. Reveal
 ing information about transactions to mitigate scams also provides valuabl
 e data about the market. We analyse the first dataset\, of which we are aw
 are\, about the transactions created and completed on a well-known and hig
 h-traffic underground marketplace\, Hack Forums\, along with the associate
 d threads and posts made by its users over two recent years\, from June 20
 18 to June 2020. We use statistical modelling approaches to analyse the ec
 onomic and social characteristics of the market over three eras\, especial
 ly its performance as an infrastructure for trust. In the Set-up era\, we 
 observe the growth of users making only one transaction\, as well as ‘po
 wer-users’ who make many transactions. In the Stable era\, we observe a 
 wide range of activities (including large-scale transfers of intermediate 
 currencies such as Amazon Giftcards) which declines slowly from an initial
  peak. Finally\, we analyse the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic\, conclud
 ing that while we see a significant increase in transactions across all ca
 tegories\, this reflects a stimulus of the market\, rather than a transfor
 mation. New users overcome the ‘cold start’ problem by engaging in low
 -level currency exchanges to prove their trustworthiness. We observe curre
 ncy exchange accounts for most contracts\, and Bitcoin and PayPal are the 
 preferred payment methods by trading values and number of contracts involv
 ed. The market is becoming more centralised over time around influential u
 sers and threads\, with significant changes observed during the Set-up and
  Covid-19 eras.
LOCATION:Online
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