A crime forum is a generic term for an Internet forum specialising in

computer crime Cybercrime encompasses a wide range of criminal activities that are carried out using digital devices and/or networks. It has been variously defined as "a crime committed on a computer network, especially the Internet"; Cybercriminals may exp ...

and

Internet fraud Internet fraud is a type of cybercrime fraud or deception which makes use of the Internet and could involve hiding of information or providing incorrect information for the purpose of tricking victims out of money, property, and inheritance. Intern ...

activities such as hacking,

identity theft Identity theft, identity piracy or identity infringement occurs when someone uses another's personal identifying information, like their name, identifying number, or credit card number, without their permission, to commit fraud or other crimes. ...

phishing Phishing is a form of social engineering and a scam where attackers deceive people into revealing sensitive information or installing malware such as viruses, worms, adware, or ransomware. Phishing attacks have become increasingly sophisticate ...

pharming Pharming is a cyberattack intended to redirect a website's traffic to another, fake site by installing a malicious program on the victim's computer in order to gain access to it. Pharming can be conducted either by changing the hosts file on a vi ...

malware Malware (a portmanteau of ''malicious software'')Tahir, R. (2018)A study on malware and malware detection techniques . ''International Journal of Education and Management Engineering'', ''8''(2), 20. is any software intentionally designed to caus ...

, gay male sex trafficking rings, or

spamming Spamming is the use of messaging systems to send multiple unsolicited messages (spam) to large numbers of recipients for the purpose of commercial advertising, non-commercial proselytizing, or any prohibited purpose (especially phishing), or si ...

. During the early days of the Internet, public dial up BBSes would serve to put miscreants in touch with one another to share tips of

credit card fraud Credit card fraud is an inclusive term for fraud committed using a payment card, such as a credit card or debit card. The purpose may be to obtain goods or services or to make payment to another account, which is controlled by a criminal. The P ...

, hacking and other illicit services. By the 2000s and the rise of the modern internet, modern internet forum software was preferred, with private invite-only sites being the most long lived. Sites like ShadowCrew, counterfeitlibrary.com and the Russian language carderplanet.com would specialise in various illegal activities before each eventually succumbing to law enforcement action. By 2015, notorious forums such as Darkode would be infiltrated and dismantled prior to returning with increased security. As of July 2015, there are estimated to be several hundred such forums.

References

Cybercrime Internet forums Internet fraud Crime forums Dark web {{internet-forum-stub

See also

References