RT Book
T1 Dark Web Marketplaces and COVID-19: The vaccines
A1 Aliapoulios, Maxwell
A1 Teytelboym, Alexander
A1 Nadini, Matthieu
A1 McCoy, Damon
A1 Gray, Ian
A1 Gallo, Angela
A1 Bracci, Alberto
A1 Baronchelli, Andrea
A2 Teytelboym, Alexander
A2 Nadini, Matthieu
A2 McCoy, Damon
A2 Gray, Ian
A2 Gallo, Angela
A2 Bracci, Alberto
A2 Baronchelli, Andrea
LA English
YR 2021
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1865843601
AB The ongoing COVID-19 vaccination campaign has so far targeted less than 3% of the world population, and even in countries where the campaign has started many citizens will not receive their doses for many months. There is clear evidence that previous shortages of COVID-19 related goods (e.g., masks and COVID-19 tests) and services pushed customers, and vendors, towards illicit online trade occurring on dark web marketplaces. Is this happening also with vaccines? Here, we report on our effort to continuously monitor 102 dark web marketplaces. By February 26, we found 33 listings offering a COVID-19 vaccine, seven of which offering officially approved vaccines. The number of currently active listings is 11, including one listing selling the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, one listing the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, and 9 listings selling vaccines of unspecified type. Illicit trade of uncertified COVID-19 vaccines poses a concrete threat to public health and risks to undermine public confidence towards vaccination.Comment: For the "before the vaccine" report see https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-021-00259-