DMiNority Report: On Monitoring Cyber-Crime Innovation in Dark Net Markets

Vitor Jesus; Endrit Kromidha; Kartik Padalkar; Akash Dhorajiwala; Yichen Xi

doi:10.1109/ISSE65546.2025.11369990

DMiNority Report: On Monitoring Cyber-Crime Innovation in Dark Net Markets

Vitor Jesus
, Endrit Kromidha
, Kartik Padalkar
, Akash Dhorajiwala
, Yichen Xi

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

10 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The Dark Web is often the primary meeting point of both the beginning of collaborations and end of cybercrime fulfilment such as sale of breached data. Such collaborations show a high level of 'entrepreneurship' as (often anonymous) users are in constant dialog to create novel forms of activity, often collaboratively devising techniques to evade law enforcement. This paper reports on a cross-disciplinary project between Computer Science (Cybersecurity) and Social Sciences (Entrepreneurship). Our key question is whether we can identify patterns of 'innovation' well before put in practice. To this end, we first show a machine-learning approach to detection of topics of conversation for the forum Dread over 7 years and then show a model from Entrepreneurship on how the Dark Web innovates. From here, we outline the design of a monitoring and detection tool which takes into account human patterns and context rather than pure content analysis.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	2025 IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering (ISSE)
Subtitle of host publication	Symposium Proceedings
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Number of pages	8
ISBN (Electronic)	9798331575502
ISBN (Print)	9798331575519
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/ISSE65546.2025.11369990
Publication status	Published - 5 Feb 2026
Event	11th IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering - École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées (ENSTA), Paris, France Duration: 28 Oct 2025 → 30 Oct 2025 https://2025.ieeeisse.org/

Publication series

Name	IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering
Publisher	IEEE
ISSN (Print)	2687-881X
ISSN (Electronic)	2687-8828

Conference

Conference	11th IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering
Abbreviated title	ISSE 2025
Country/Territory	France
City	Paris
Period	28/10/25 → 30/10/25
Internet address	https://2025.ieeeisse.org/

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 IEEE.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Keywords

dark net markets
dark web
entrepreneurship
innovation
topic modelling

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Computer Science Applications
Hardware and Architecture
Information Systems
Control and Systems Engineering
Control and Optimization
Modelling and Simulation

Access to Document

10.1109/ISSE65546.2025.11369990Licence: None: All rights reserved

JesusV2025DMiNority_AAMAccepted author manuscript, 897 KBLicence: Creative Commons: Attribution (CC BY)

https://publications.aston.ac.uk/id/eprint/48695/Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND)

Cite this

Jesus, V., Kromidha, E., Padalkar, K., Dhorajiwala, A., & Xi, Y. (2026). DMiNority Report: On Monitoring Cyber-Crime Innovation in Dark Net Markets. In 2025 IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering (ISSE): Symposium Proceedings (IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). https://doi.org/10.1109/ISSE65546.2025.11369990

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title = "DMiNority Report: On Monitoring Cyber-Crime Innovation in Dark Net Markets",

abstract = "The Dark Web is often the primary meeting point of both the beginning of collaborations and end of cybercrime fulfilment such as sale of breached data. Such collaborations show a high level of 'entrepreneurship' as (often anonymous) users are in constant dialog to create novel forms of activity, often collaboratively devising techniques to evade law enforcement. This paper reports on a cross-disciplinary project between Computer Science (Cybersecurity) and Social Sciences (Entrepreneurship). Our key question is whether we can identify patterns of 'innovation' well before put in practice. To this end, we first show a machine-learning approach to detection of topics of conversation for the forum Dread over 7 years and then show a model from Entrepreneurship on how the Dark Web innovates. From here, we outline the design of a monitoring and detection tool which takes into account human patterns and context rather than pure content analysis.",

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author = "Vitor Jesus and Endrit Kromidha and Kartik Padalkar and Akash Dhorajiwala and Yichen Xi",

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Jesus, V, Kromidha, E, Padalkar, K, Dhorajiwala, A & Xi, Y 2026, DMiNority Report: On Monitoring Cyber-Crime Innovation in Dark Net Markets. in 2025 IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering (ISSE): Symposium Proceedings. IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 11th IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering, Paris, France, 28/10/25. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISSE65546.2025.11369990

DMiNority Report: On Monitoring Cyber-Crime Innovation in Dark Net Markets. / Jesus, Vitor; Kromidha, Endrit; Padalkar, Kartik et al.
2025 IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering (ISSE): Symposium Proceedings. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2026. (IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

TY - GEN

T1 - DMiNority Report

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AU - Kromidha, Endrit

AU - Padalkar, Kartik

AU - Dhorajiwala, Akash

AU - Xi, Yichen

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AB - The Dark Web is often the primary meeting point of both the beginning of collaborations and end of cybercrime fulfilment such as sale of breached data. Such collaborations show a high level of 'entrepreneurship' as (often anonymous) users are in constant dialog to create novel forms of activity, often collaboratively devising techniques to evade law enforcement. This paper reports on a cross-disciplinary project between Computer Science (Cybersecurity) and Social Sciences (Entrepreneurship). Our key question is whether we can identify patterns of 'innovation' well before put in practice. To this end, we first show a machine-learning approach to detection of topics of conversation for the forum Dread over 7 years and then show a model from Entrepreneurship on how the Dark Web innovates. From here, we outline the design of a monitoring and detection tool which takes into account human patterns and context rather than pure content analysis.

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Jesus V, Kromidha E, Padalkar K, Dhorajiwala A, Xi Y. DMiNority Report: On Monitoring Cyber-Crime Innovation in Dark Net Markets. In 2025 IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering (ISSE): Symposium Proceedings. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). 2026. (IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering). doi: 10.1109/ISSE65546.2025.11369990

DMiNority Report: On Monitoring Cyber-Crime Innovation in Dark Net Markets

Abstract

Publication series

Conference

Bibliographical note

UN SDGs

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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Cite this