research-article

Why forums?: an empirical analysis into the facilitating factors of carding forums

Authors:

Nigel Shadbolt,

Craig WebberAuthors Info & Claims

WebSci '13: Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Web Science Conference

Pages 453 - 462

https://doi.org/10.1145/2464464.2464524

Published: 02 May 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Over the last decade, the nature of cybercrime has transformed from naive vandalism to profit-driven, leading to the emergence of a global underground economy. A noticeable trend which has surfaced in this economy is the repeated use of forums to operate online stolen data markets. Using interaction data from three prominent carding forums: Shadowcrew, Cardersmarket and Darkmarket, this study sets out to understand why forums are repeatedly chosen to operate online stolen data markets despite numerous successful infiltrations by law enforcement in the past. Drawing on theories from criminology, social psychology, economics and network science, this study has identified four fundamental socio-economic mechanisms offered by carding forums: (1) formal control and coordination; (2) social networking; (3) identity uncertainty mitigation; (4) quality uncertainty mitigation. Together, they give rise to a sophisticated underground market regulatory system that facilitates underground trading over the Internet and thus drives the expansion of the underground economy.

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Cited By

Girard MDécary-Hétu D(2025)From warnings to bans: The role of social networks in the severity of sanctionsSocial Networks10.1016/j.socnet.2025.02.00182(1-13)Online publication date: Jul-2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2025.02.001
Hoheisel RMeurs TJunger MTews EAbhishta A(2024)Dark Web Dialogues: Analyzing Communication Platform Choices of Underground Forum Users2024 APWG Symposium on Electronic Crime Research (eCrime)10.1109/eCrime66200.2024.00020(187-201)Online publication date: 24-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/eCrime66200.2024.00020
Gnielka FReichel RBlokland ADaser Ade Boer MGannon CSchmidt ASchäfer THuikuri SStaciwa KLehmann R(2024)Missing the mark? Identifying child sexual abuse material forum structure and key-players based on public replies and private messaging networksHumanities and Social Sciences Communications10.1057/s41599-024-03954-x11:1Online publication date: 2-Nov-2024
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Index Terms

Why forums?: an empirical analysis into the facilitating factors of carding forums
1. Information systems
  1. Information systems applications
    1. Data mining
2. Social and professional topics

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cover image ACM Conferences

WebSci '13: Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Web Science Conference

May 2013

481 pages

ISBN:9781450318891

DOI:10.1145/2464464

Conference Chairs:
Hugh Davis
University of Southampton
,
Harry Halpin
World Wide Web Consortium
,
Alex Pentland,
Program Chairs:
Mark Bernstein,
Lada Adamic,
Harith Alani,
Alexandre Monnin,
Richard Rogers

Copyright © 2013 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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SIGWEB: ACM Special Interest Group on Hypertext, Hypermedia, and Web

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 02 May 2013

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Hoheisel RMeurs TJunger MTews EAbhishta A(2024)Dark Web Dialogues: Analyzing Communication Platform Choices of Underground Forum Users2024 APWG Symposium on Electronic Crime Research (eCrime)10.1109/eCrime66200.2024.00020(187-201)Online publication date: 24-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/eCrime66200.2024.00020
Gnielka FReichel RBlokland ADaser Ade Boer MGannon CSchmidt ASchäfer THuikuri SStaciwa KLehmann R(2024)Missing the mark? Identifying child sexual abuse material forum structure and key-players based on public replies and private messaging networksHumanities and Social Sciences Communications10.1057/s41599-024-03954-x11:1Online publication date: 2-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03954-x
Lykousas NKoutsokostas VCasino FPatsakis C(2023)The Cynicism of Modern Cybercrime: Automating the Analysis of Surface Web Marketplaces2023 IEEE International Conference on Service-Oriented System Engineering (SOSE)10.1109/SOSE58276.2023.00027(161-171)Online publication date: Jul-2023
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Sebagh LLusthaus JGallo EVarese FSirur S(2022)Cooperation and distrust in extra-legal networks: a research note on the experimental study of marketplace disruptionGlobal Crime10.1080/17440572.2022.203115223:3(259-283)Online publication date: 23-Feb-2022
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Kigerl A(2020)Behind the Scenes of the Underworld: Hierarchical Clustering of Two Leaked Carding Forum DatabasesSocial Science Computer Review10.1177/089443932092473540:3(618-640)Online publication date: 5-Jun-2020
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Guillot MDécary-Hétu D(2019)Cryptomarchés et carding : impact sur l’offre et la demandeCryptomarkets and carding: Influence on supply and demandMercados criptográficos y carding: Impacto sobre la oferta y la demandaCriminologie10.7202/1065856ar52:2(63)Online publication date: 2019
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