State of the dark web: Insights from the underground Rise of professional criminal gangs, malware-as-a-service and improved infrastructure for carrying out criminal activity are changing the dark web. Here's what that means for enterprise security Credit: Dreamstime Lately, dark web actors have one more worry: getting caught by law enforcement. Tracking dark web illegal activities has been a cat-and-mouse game for authorities, but in the end, they often catch their adversaries and seize the dodgy money. On the night of the 2020 presidential election, for example, US government officials managed to empty out a $1 billion Bitcoin wallet recovering funds linked to Silk Road, seven years after the market’s closure. Silk Road was a popular underground marketplace dealing in illegal goods and services such as narcotics, hacking for hire, and contract killing.