Commercial dark web reports

Since 2016, we have seen a rising trend in ‘commercial’ hidden services – dedicated websites offering child sexual abuse imagery for sale.

Of the 335 newly-identified hidden services distributing child sexual abuse imagery in 2023, 247 (74%) were assessed as being commercial. Due to the anonymous nature of hidden services, these commercial websites increasingly accept payment in virtual currencies as well as credit cards.

What can we do about this?

We work with the wider payments services industry and our Virtual Currency Alerts help our Members in the virtual payments sector to identify payments which are associated with child sexual abuse imagery. We continue to monitor trends in these payments and share this intelligence with our partners.