Darknet market Agora suspends service, citing security concerns

Dark web marketplace Agora has announced that it will temporarily shut down its website as it works on defense mechanisms against potential attacks.

The closure of the dark web market was also due to a recent investigation that showed that the Tor protocol had security risks that could lead to the leakage and identification of information about its servers and operators.

Agora Market is considered the largest black market website with a huge daily transaction volume, allowing users to use Bitcoin to purchase items on its website, some of which are legal and some are illegal.

In a statement on Agora's website, the anonymous administrator of the marketplace reported that they had moved their servers in light of an outside investigation into "suspicious activity" that could expose their IP address and provide law enforcement with insight into their operations.

The statement said:

"We don't have a solution at this time and we can't put our users at risk. So, although sad, we have to temporarily shut down the site until we can work out a better solution."

The regulator urged customers to withdraw money from their accounts as soon as possible and not to send bitcoins to Agora if the deposit address is offline.