Agora Black Market: Closing due to Tor network vulnerabilities
Agora, the black market, announced Tuesday afternoon that it will be temporarily offline due to fears of exploits of recently discovered Tor flaws. Operators of black markets are concerned about the true level of anonymity offered by the Tor network after the discovery of critical vulnerabilities affecting the system's anonymity.
The administrators of the Agora black market, one of the most important black markets, decided to close and move operations elsewhere due to flaws in the Tor network that could be exploited by law enforcement agencies to track down buyers and sellers.
At the Agora black market it is possible to purchase various illegal products, while the majority of sales concern drugs.
In July, security experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) revealed how a successful attack can be carried out on Tor servers to de-anonymize the location of hidden servers. Researchers from MIT have discovered a vulnerability in Tor that leads to the detection of hidden services with more than 88% accuracy.
Due to the presence of these flaws in the Tor network, Agora administrators are urging its users to avoid using the platform and warning sellers of illegal goods "not to place any orders that have not yet been shipped or are in processing.".
In other words, the business will remain closed for the time being, as the operators behind the popular marketplace plan to move the platform outside of the Tor network. They announced that they are already working on finding another solution to secure the platform’s users. It was confirmed that the platform will be accessible when Agora reopens.
