A Comprehensive Study on Emerging Trends of Dark Web Marketplaces and Forums

This paper investigates the evolving landscape of dark web marketplaces and forums, emphasizing their cyclical rise and fall, the resilience of their admins and users, also the security aspects that influence platform trust and longevity. Through an analysis of prominent platforms such as Abacus, Archetyp, and Cypher, the study traces patterns of user migration in response to other dark web marketplace closures and highlights the role of illicit forums as a hub communication between every dark web user. In addition, dark web forums such as BreachForums, XSS, and Altenen are explored for their role in facilitating cybercrime. While this research primarily relies on secondary data, it identifies key trends that inform future research directions. To address the limitations of current dark web data collection, this paper advocates for the development of more sophisticated web crawlers and advances in dark web forensics to better analyze encrypted communications and illicit activities.