Tor Network Shrinking

On 5 October 2017, Wapack Analysts observed several prominent Tor-based hacker forums go permanently offline - at the same time. Despite the clearweb address being offline, one of the forum's Tor onion sites was still online, suggesting a potential infiltration of the server; as seen with past law enforcement activities. The forums went offline with out any announcement or reason given for the disappearance. Several Reddit users have re-circulated the onion sites and are now speculating about what happened. In a recent blog post by Gizmodo, they explain that the Tor network is statistically shrinking. Gizmodo, utilizing the Onionscan tool, scanned a list of over 30,000 onion domains and reported only 4,400 online. Wapack Analysts have not observed any new Tor-based hacking forums for more than a week, suggesting possibly, a move away from Tor and on to different channels of communication...READ MORE

Wapack Labs has cataloged and reported Tor network activity and trends in the past. An archive of related reporting can be found in the Red Sky Alliance portal.

WWW.WAPACKLABS.COM

Rogue Money Shredders

On 15 September 2017, Wapack Labs observed a new Tor onion involving rogue, foreign money shredders. They claim to be apart of a large network of shredders who devalue Swiss Franc currency by re-circulating, or converting, the Francs into other currencies: U.S. Dollars (USD), Euro (EUR), and the British Pound (GBP). The hard currency that is to be shredded must be deteriorated, have holes, or is a beyond a specific date - laundering only small amounts at a time. In order to procure the cash, they claim to use anonymous bitcoin bribes and violent threats. They state that the currency used is legitimate and legal; warning counterfeit currency is illegal. The legitimacy of their hard currency product(s) is unknown. Wapack Labs will continue to research the groups' capabilities and attempt to identify the actors involved in this currency operation...READ MORE

Wapack Labs has cataloged and reported extensively on Tor forums and money laundering in the past. An archive of related reporting can be found in the Red Sky Alliance portal.

WWW.WAPACKLABS.COM