An analysis of underground forums
Proceedings of the 2011 ACM SIGCOMM conference on Internet measurement conference
Survey and taxonomy of botnet research through life-cycle
ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR)
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Illegal activities in cyberspace involving software vulnerabilities have resulted in tangible damage on computer-based environments. Lately, online black market sites for trading stolen goods, credentials, malware and exploit kits have been intensively examined. The market players are identifiably a group of loosely tied individuals but posses shared interests. However, their social behavior has only been discussed in a limited manner. This paper examines the arrangement of the market insiders’ social behavior that enables such forums to continue or discontinue their operation and become a meaningful threat to security. The results reveal that particular formal and informal regulations and procedures, forum lifecycle and common norms of black market participants contributing to keeping the markets running.