According to the blockchain intelligence firm Elliptic,
cybercriminals are leveraging cryptocurrency analytics to get ahead of
law enforcement. Elliptic says a “blockchain analytics tool has been
launched on the dark web” and the tool is called “Antinalysis.”
Meet the Blockchain Analytics Tool ‘Antinalysis’ Hosted on Tor
On August 13, the blockchain surveillance company Elliptic published a blog post
that details how the firm discovered a blockchain analytics tool that
is leveraged by cybercriminals to protect themselves. The tool dubbed
“Antinalysis” allows “bitcoin addresses to be checked for links to
criminal activity,” Elliptic claims.
The company’s announcement further states that Antinalysis gives
individuals the ability to “test whether their funds will be identified
as proceeds of crime by regulated exchanges.” The company’s blog post
adds:
Antinalysis seeks to help crypto launderers to avoid
this, by giving them a preview of what a blockchain analytics tool will
make of their bitcoin wallet and the funds it contains. The site runs on
Tor, an anonymous version of the web commonly used to host darknet
markets and other illicit services.
Elliptic says that the creator of Antinalysis is a software developer
behind the darknet market (DNM) Incognito Market. The tool’s mission
statement is: “offering a perspective from the opponent’s point of
view,” Elliptic’s blog post details.
People utilizing the Antinalysis tool are paying $3 to look at a
single bitcoin address and the tool breaks down onchain movements. Users
can pay for the service by using bitcoin (BTC) or monero (XMR), Elliptic’s report highlights.
“Antinalysis claims to offer highly accurate results and to have
verified this by comparing them to those generated by commercially
available blockchain analytics tools,” Elliptic said. “However,
Elliptic’s own evaluation of the results returned for a range of bitcoin
addresses shows that it was poor at detecting links to major darknet
markets and other criminal entities.” The blog post further stresses:
Regardless, the tool represents a significant new capability for crypto launderers.
Furthermore, Elliptic emphasized in the blog post that an article
published by the well known security researcher Brian Krebs also came
to the same conclusions. Both Krebs and Elliptic detail that Antinalysis
likely leverages the AMLBot API which is a tool crafted by the
blockchain intelligence firm Crystal Blockchain.
“The results provided by Antinalysis are identical to those provided by AMLBot,” Elliptic’s account of the new tool explains.
source link : https://news.bitcoin.com/darknet-users-leverage-a-new-blockchain-analytics-tool-that-scans-for-ties-to-criminal-activity/
