CYBER SECURITY: Hydra DarkNet earned over $1.3 Billion in 2020
By Iain Fraser - Cybersecurity Journalist, Gibraltar
Hydra the Russian language "dark web" marketplace, bolstered its position of the go to market for cyber criminals and OCGs earning over 1.11€ Billion ($1.37 USD) worth of cryptocurrencies in 2020 up from up from 7.68€ Million ($9.4 million) in 2016, marking a staggering 624% year-on-year jump over a three-year period from 2018 to 2020.
Active since 2015, Hydra opened as a competitor to the now-defunct Russian Anonymous Marketplace (aka RAMP), primarily facilitating narcotics trade, before becoming a bazaar for all things criminal, including offering BTC cash-out services and peddling stolen credit cards, SIM cards, documents, IDs, and counterfeit money, with the operators profiting as the intermediary for every transaction conducted on the platform.
Hydra accounts for over 75% of darknet market revenue worldwide in 2020, positioning it as a major player in the crypto crime landscape in Eastern Europe, according to a report by Chainalysis published in February 2021. This skyrocketing cryptocurrency activity conducted through the marketplace can be partly attributed to the demise of RAMP in September 2017, which resulted in a mass migration of cybercrime gangs to Hydra. Learn More/
