Following the news that Silk Road 2.0 has been seized by the FBI, Craig Young, security researcher at Tripwire, explains how this has happened:
“The FBI and other law enforcement agencies have been very good at getting up to speed with modern cybercrime tactics. In the case of Silk Road 2.0, it appears that the FBI was able to infiltrate the inner-circle of the site’s administrative staff thereby gaining access to communications and data allowing them to make a case against Blake Benthall the alleged founder of the site. This is a great example of how 20th century law enforcement tactics and undercover operations are still viable in the 21st century despite drastic changes to the criminal landscape.
“The FBI has generally demonstrated in recent years that they can and will go after cybercriminals operating in the relative anonymity of the TOR network. Although the legality of some of the law enforcement tools has been called into question at times, there is no denying the effectiveness with which US law enforcement has been able to identify and shutdown illegal services provided over the dark web. (FBI tactics have included such actions as surreptitiously installing malware onto computers accessing illegal web sites and breaching hidden services to identify their physical locations.)”