AlphaBay

AlphaBay was reportedly launched in September 2014,[1] pre-launched in November 2014 and officially launched on December 22, 2014, it saw a steady growth, with 14,000 new users in the first 90 days of operation. The darknet informer website Gwern.net placed AlphaBay Market in the top tier of markets regarding the 6-month survival probability and it had proven to be successful.[13] In October 2015, it was recognized as the largest online darknet market according to Dan Palumbo, research director at Digital Citizens Alliance.[14]

Non-standard services included customisable digital contracts around building reputations.[15]

In May 2015, the site announced an integrated digital contracts and escrow system.[16] The contract system allows users to make engagements and agree to provide services in the future, according to the terms of the contract.

By October 2015, AlphaBay had over 200,000 users.[4]

At the time of its demise in July 2017, AlphaBay had over 400,000 users.[4]

AlphaBay was noteworthy in the world of darknet markets for accepting another cryptocurrency in addition to bitcoin; support for Monero, supposedly more anonymous, was implemented at the end of August 2016.[17]

In April 2016, AlphaBay's API was compromised leading to 13,000 messages being stolen.[18] In January 2017, the API was once again compromised, allowing over 200,000 private messages from the last 30 days and a list of user names to be leaked. The attack was from a single hacker who was paid by AlphaBay for the disclosure. AlphaBay reported that the exploit had only been used in conjunction with this attack and not used previously.[19]

On March 28, 2015, AlphaBay Market made the news for selling stolen Uber accounts.[20][21] Uber made a statement regarding a potential data breach:

"We investigated and found no evidence of a breach. Attempting to fraudulently access or sell accounts is illegal and we notified the authorities about this report. This is a good opportunity to remind people to use strong and unique usernames and passwords and to avoid reusing the same credentials across multiple sites and services."

In October 2015, the London-based telecommunications company TalkTalk sustained a major hack.[22] The stolen data was put for sale on AlphaBay Market, which led to the arrest of a 15-year-old boy.[23] TalkTalk CEO Dido Harding issued the following statement:

"TalkTalk constantly updates its systems to make sure they are as secure as possible against the rapidly evolving threat of cyber crime, impacting an increasing number of individuals and organisations. We take any threat to the security of our customers' data extremely seriously and we are taking all the necessary steps to understand what has happened here."

In December 2015, the website CodeBreaker released a podcast describing shopping experience on the marketplace.[24] This podcast talks about purchasing legal items on the marketplace, such as pharmaceutical drugs.

In August 2017, AlphaBay was revealed as a possible venue by which one of the perpetrators of the 2017 Jewish Community Center bomb threats sold a "School Email Bomb Threat Service." This individual, Michael Kadar, made 245 threatening calls to schools and community centers. Criminologist David Decary-Hetu noted this event as notable for being the first example of criminal services being sold over a darkmarket. He said, "All the cases I have heard of so far turned out to be law enforcement trying to find people of interest," making this case unique in his experience to that point.[25]

Notice left on the Tor hidden service after AlphaBay closed

By July 2017, AlphaBay was ten times the size of its predecessor Silk Road[26] (which was busted in October 2013), had over 369,000 listings,[1] 400,000 users,[4] was facilitating USD$600,000-$800,000 of transactions per day,[27] and had reportedly built a strong reputation.[1][28] However, a series of elementary operational security errors lead to its downfall:

• About the time the service first began in December 2014, Cazes used his Hotmail address pimp_alex_91@hotmail.com as the 'From' address in system generated welcome and password reset emails, which he also used for his LinkedIn profile and his legitimate computer repair business in Canada.[1]
• Cazes used a pseudonym to run the site which he had previously used (e.g., in carding and tech forums) since at least 2008, and variously advertised this identity as the "designer", "administrator" and "owner" of the site[1]
• When Cazes was arrested, he was logged into his laptop performing an administrative reboot on an AlphaBay server in direct response to a law-enforcement created artificial system failure; furthermore, encryption was wholly absent on said laptop.[29][1]
• Cazes' laptop reportedly contained an unencrypted personal net worth statement mapping all global assets across multiple jurisdictions, conveniently leading police to complete asset seizure.[1]
• The servers were hosted at a company in Canada directly linked to his person.[1]
• The servers contained multiple constantly open (unencrypted) hot cryptocurrency wallets.[1]
• Cazes' flashy use of proceeds to purchase property, passports and luxury cars and frequent online boasting about his financial successes, including posting videos of himself driving luxury cars acquired through illegal proceeds, not only revealed his geographical location, it perforce made denying connection to the service impossible.[1]
• Assets acquired through proceeds were held in a variety of accounts directly linked to Cazes, his wife and companies they owned in Thailand (the same jurisdiction they lived), as well as directly held personal accounts in Liechtenstein, Cyprus, Switzerland and Antigua.[1]
• Cazes' statements about the goal of the site — "launched in September 2014 and its goal is to become the largest eBay-style underworld marketplace" — helped to legally establish intent.[1]