Police raid shuts down dark net

Around 400 dark net websites have been seized by the police in recent action to tackle Cybercrime.

Sixteen European countries and the USA acted together to target the Tor network, which is home to some of the most disturbing content on the web such as indecent child abuse images, extremist websites and illegal marketplaces which are used to sell drugs, weapons and sometimes even people.

Websites on the Tor network are anonymous and do not appear on commonly used search engines such as Google or Bing but are still hiding in the deep web, a lot of criminals use these websites as previously it has been unreachable territory for the authorities.

However, with a recent takedown 17 people were arrested including Blake Benthall, the creator of Silk 2.0. It is a website on the Tor network that is a commonly used illegal market place for drug trading, it was started last year when the original website, Silk, was shut down and the creator arrested.

Alan Woodward, a security consultant who advises Europol, said that the shutdown represents a new era in the fight against cybercrime.

However, as around three million users are expected to be using such sites, there is still a long way to go before Cybercrime can be tackled completely.