Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Silk Road 2.0 Admin Sentenced to 8 Years in Prison

Brian Richard Farrell, a 27-year-old accused of being a key administrator of the dark web criminal marketplace Silk Road 2.0, has been sentenced to eight years in prison and four years of supervised release.

Brian Richard Farrell, a 27-year-old accused of being a key administrator of the dark web criminal marketplace Silk Road 2.0, has been sentenced to eight years in prison and four years of supervised release.

Silk Road 2.0 was launched in November 2013 after U.S. authorities shut down the original Silk Road, whose alleged operator, Ross Ulbricht, was sentenced to life in prison last year. Authorities launched an investigation into Silk Road 2.0 and in November 2014 they arrested its operator, Blake Benthall (aka Defcon).

According to prosecutors, Farrell was one of the few individuals who helped Benthall operate the website. Specifically, Farrell was tasked with approving new vendors and staff, and he organized a DDoS attack against a competitor.

Farrell was arrested in January 2015 and in March 2016 he pleaded guilty to one count of distribution of heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine. Before pleading guilty, Farrell’s defense questioned the methods used by the FBI to identify their client.

Silk Road 2.0 had been using the Tor anonymity network to protect the identities of staff and customers. However, authorities caught a break when researchers from Carnegie Mellon University discovered a way to deanonymize Tor users.

The research, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, was used to identify the real IP addresses of Tor users suspected of conducting criminal activities. Farrell’s defense argued that the FBI’s search of the Tor network might have violated his Fourth Amendment rights and filed a motion to obtain additional information on the methods used. However, the judge denied the motion since the suspect was identified based only on his IP address, and noted that Tor users should not expect their real IPs to remain private.

Just before its operator was arrested, Silk Road 2.0 generated sales of roughly $8 million every month. The dark web marketplace, which had approximately 150,000 active members, was used to distribute hundreds of kilograms of illegal drugs, and launder millions of dollars.

Related Reading: SpyEye Developers Sentenced to 24 Years in Prison

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

Related Reading: Gozi Malware Creator Sentenced to Time Served

Written By

Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a managing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join the session as we discuss the challenges and best practices for cybersecurity leaders managing cloud identities.

Register

SecurityWeek’s Ransomware Resilience and Recovery Summit helps businesses to plan, prepare, and recover from a ransomware incident.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Cybercrime

Zendesk is informing customers about a data breach that started with an SMS phishing campaign targeting the company’s employees.

Cybercrime

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft calls attention to a series of zero-day remote code execution attacks hitting its Office productivity suite.

Artificial Intelligence

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 has demonstrated the potential of AI for both good and bad.

Cybercrime

Satellite TV giant Dish Network confirmed that a recent outage was the result of a cyberattack and admitted that data was stolen.