DarkMarket.ws, the online forum better known as the biggest hacker market for trading stolen online identities, credit card information, ATM skimmers, and a host of other related items – is shutting down Oct 4 according to a notice posted on the forum by one of the forum administrators, Splyntr.

The shut down plan follows arrest of one of its administrators, Cha0 (Cagatay Evyapan), by Turkish police earlier this month.

The whole story is covered in great detail this story on Wired’s Blog, Threat Level.  So, what’ next after DarkMarket.ws?

DarkMarket emerged after ShadowCrew.com was taken offline and I reckon it is not going to take long before another online community fills the void left by DarkMarket’s departure from the scene.

There are already a handful of other established online forums that cater to the needs of cyber criminals and new ones crop up all the time offering some high-value loot for those in need:

Fig. 1- A post on a DarkMarket wanna-be forum

Fig. 2: Same post, more details

Some of the more established forums would welcome the extra traffic that they generate from the less experienced DarkMarket users, looking for other market places to trade in:

Fig. 3: "Real-looking" credit cards packed with actual victim data are now being sold online.

Fig. 4: They sure do look "real"

Indepent trading sites are likely to see a surge in their business too as some of the cyber criminals are likely to deal direct without exposing any of their information on any online forums:

Fig. 5: One of the more "reputable" stolen credit card sales website.

Although none of the existing online hacker market places can truly replace the stature of DarkMarket, there is likely to be a surge in competition amongst the various online underground sites to try and reach the level of popularity that DarkMarket currently enjoys.

Any new community formed by the existing DarkMarket admins is likely to see stricter membership controls which probably served as the weak link for the forum; DarkMarket user-level access accounts were being retailed at competing forums privately for US$800 and above, just a couple of weeks ago.

It would be interesting to see what comes next after DarkMarket – and how the law enforcement agencies play catch-up with the notorious underground hacker market places.

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