There is no need to say that 2020 was ground-shaking. The pandemic affected just about all aspects of life in ways that we are only starting to understand. It tremendously impacted the cyber underground as well. Nearly all of Cybersixgill’s research reports dealt directly or indirectly with the impact of COVID on the cyber underground. The months of the lockdowns brought an unprecedented spike in actors and posts in underground forums and platforms, peaking in April. In addition to the large volume of discourse about the virus itself (“are we all going to die?”), threat actors openly expressed that the lockdown, fear of contagion, remote-working chaos, and stimulus cash all presented opportunities for financial windfalls.
This report examines dark web activity that took place in the deep and dark web during 2020.
