Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the demand for goods and services worldwide. The combination of a public health emergency, economic distress, and misinformation-driven panic have pushed customers and vendors towards the shadow economy. In particular, dark web marketplaces (DWMs), commercial websites accessible via free software, have gained significant popularity. Here, we analyse 851,199 listings extracted from 30 DWMs between January 1, 2020 and November 16, 2020. We identify 788 listings directly related to COVID-19 products and monitor the temporal evolution of product categories including Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), medicines (e.g., hydroxyclorochine), and medical frauds. Finally, we compare trends in their temporal evolution with variations in public attention, as measured by Twitter posts and Wikipedia page visits. We reveal how the online shadow economy has evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic and highlight the importance of a continuous monitoring of DWMs, especially now that real vaccines are available and in short supply. We anticipate our analysis will be of interest both to researchers and public agencies focused on the protection of public health.
Highlights
COVID-19 gained global attention when China suddenly quarantined the city of Wuhan on January 23, 2020 [1]
We investigated the relationship between major COVID-19 events, public attention, and the time evolution of the number of active listings
We quantified the indirect impact that COVID-19 had on all 30 dark web marketplaces (DWMs) under consideration by tracking the percentage of listings mentioning the themes of lockdown, delays, and sales
Summary
COVID-19 gained global attention when China suddenly quarantined the city of Wuhan on January 23, 2020 [1]. Declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020, at the moment of writing the virus has infected more than 62,000,000 people and caused over 1,450,000 deaths worldwide [2] Measures such as social distancing, quarantine, travel restrictions, testing, and contact tracing have proven vital to containing the COVID-19 pandemic [3]. Anti-gouging regulations were introduced to control prices, which significantly affected the public attention on products related to COVID-19 [10]. As this trend has continued, further exacerbated by online misinformation, numerous customers have sought to fulfill their needs through illicit online channels [11, 12]
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