Dark web
The study focuses on how sites on the Dark Web are subject to its own hacking attempts and DDoS attacks iStock

While hacking is becoming an increasing threat by the day, hackers operating on the Dark Web are more than often indulged in attacking each other, according to a recent study by Trend Micro. The Dark Web is that part of the World Wide Web that is only accessible through special software, allowing users and website operators to remain anonymous and untraceable.

The study focuses on how sites on the Dark Web are subject to its own hacking attempts and DDoS attacks and they are surprisingly common. These are manually aimed at spying on the services run by other cybercriminals within the platform.

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The aim of the study was to learn whether cybercriminals deliberately target and compromise systems run by other hackers. The researchers found most organisations on the Dark Web ended up attacking each other maintaining little or no honour among themselves.

The team set up a honeypot to mimic underground services like VIP marketplaces and forums run by "shady" organizations . It was found that attackers accessing the honeypot from the platform carried out different types of attacks as listed below:

  • Defacements aimed at promoting a competitor web site
  • Attempts to hijack and spy on the messages or any other communication being held through the honeypot site
  • Data theft from a disguised FTP file server
  • Manual attacks including DDoS against the custom application running the underground forum

Despite the fact that indexing and searching is more complex within the Dark Web, the study shows how hackers take the extra effort into finding sites they can disable and get a competitive edge over.

"Apparently, there is no honour among thieves," said the company in a statement.