Criminal markets on dark web forums are the online version of a bad neighborhood, complete with sellers, buyers, and people who make their living connecting those groups. They tend to be self-policing, and so when an individual discovers a fundamental flaw in the technical foundation of the community and then decides to take advantage of that flaw to hold entire markets for ransom, that tends to get people’s attention. It’s a high-stakes game.

Daniel Byrnes is a senior threat intelligence analyst with Recorded Future’s Insikt Group, and he found himself on a journey down a dark web rabbit hole to try to make sense of the situation.