University of Energy and Natural Resources

• BIO DARKWEB

• Founded in 2015, Dark-Time is a predominantly Russian-language cybercriminal forum mainly hosting technical discussion of tools and knowledge used in cybercriminal attacks. The site underwent significant changes in 2018, with many new sections added and older ones archived. Dark-Time’s user base only increased from approximately 68,000 in June 2018 to 71,500 in February 2021, coinciding with a large drop off in activity levels; currently only a handful of new posts are added across the forum each week. However, these new posts have high view counts, which likely suggests a strong lurker or index-bot presence on the platform. The site is not gated but operates an invitation-only account upgrade system, which grants access to the information leakfocused Restricted section. The forum proper is divided into six areas, with further sections and subsections within each area: File-server General section Restricted section Market Dark-Time[.]com Archive Dark-Time features discussions on a variety of technical cybercrime-related topics, with a heavy focus on software, programming, programming languages, operating systems, and other technical subjects related to attack methodologies. Users share guides and news pertaining to attack types, methods, and vectors. While very little trade occurs in the Market area, sections dedicated to data dumps saw moderate activity throughout 2020 and 2021, and the Journal, Giveaway, Programming, and Looking for work sections have received multiple updates in 2021. The Archive area hosts a vast amount of resources, including the entire content of other sites that have since been rendered offline, most notably HHIDE[.]ORG. Whilst the quantity of new posts since 2018 has diminished, the moderator presence on the site has not. It is conceivable that users are mainly adding posts to the Restricted section of the forum, although this is unlikely given that this section is strictly devoted to data leaks. Overall, the site is well moderated, with very few threads posted in inappropriate forum sections and few instances of users spamming a section with low-quality threads. Though little new content has been added in 2020 and 2021, novice cybercriminals would likely still find information posted on