Dark web market Cannazon shuts down after massive DDoS attack

Cannazon, one of the largest dark web marketplaces for buying marijuana products, shut down last week after suffering a debilitating distributed denial of service attack.

As the admins explained in a message signed with the market's PGP key, they are officially retiring and claim not to be pulling an exit scam on their vendors.

The admins posted that message on November 23, 2021, and today, Cannazon went offline, allegedly forever.

A DDoS attack led to shut down

The site was hit by a massive DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack at the start of the month, which is not uncommon for dark web markets.

The admins reduced the number of orders and kept the market partially offline for a while to mitigate the problems, but this has created a buzz in the community, fearing an imminent exit scam.

The shutdown announcement apologizes for the lack of transparency in how the admins handled the situation and states the following: 

"We are very sorry that we had to keep you in the dark for the last days. In our opinion this was the best way to prevent some vendors from trying to exit scam, harming you and the community," read the shutdown announcement from the site admins.

"If some vendor did not manage to get all his signed Bitcoin multisig transactions, he can get them from an encrypted message which will be published on Dread later this week."

With the shut down of Cannazon, it would not be surprising to see other sites created using the same name under a new Tor address. However, these will likely be operated by scammers looking to defraud the original site's members.

The emergence of fake clone sites is typical when a large and well-known dark web platform goes offline.

Why it’s a bad idea

If you're thinking that buying cannabis from the dark web is an easy way to circumvent drug laws in your country while remaining anonymous behind VPNs or Tor, you are ignoring large chunks of the risks involved.

First, most of these platforms, including Cannazon and CannaHome, operate with memberships. As such, all users give away some crumbs of info during registration. If their servers eventually fall into the hands of law enforcement, buyers could be identified.

Secondly, the chances of getting scammed when placing an order are always high, even in marketplaces where admins promise high levels of trading security.

Thirdly, any drugs shipped to you may be laced with dangerous toxic substances or be completely different from what you thought you were paying for. As such, consuming them could pose a severe risk to your health.

Finally, purchasing drugs online is illegal in many countries and could lead to fines and possible jail time.