The lure of the dark web is tempting laid-off workers, teenagers, and elite talent into a life of cybercrime, according to new research from Kaspersky, which found that developers, analysts, and even pen testers are increasingly turning to dangerous new career paths.

The cybersec firm’s latest report, Inside the Dark Web Job Market, found a two-fold increase in the number of ‘CVs’ and jobs posted on underground forums in Q1 2025 compared to Q1’23, a trend apparently driven by a surge in global layoffs and an influx of tech-savvy younger candidates with fewer outlets or options.

Based on an analysis of over 2,200 job‑related posts across dark web forums, the report found that young people are the most likely to seek out these illicit opportunities. Kaspersky found a median age of just 24 among candidates, alongside a significant number of teenagers putting themselves forward.   

Overall, Kaspersky found that this year, the number of resumes posted on the dark web outnumbered vacancies at 55% to 45%, with in-demand IT roles posted by “employers” reflecting a growing maturity of the cybercriminal ecosystem, which includes some legitimate positions.

Developers were found to be the most in-demand, accounting for 17% of jobs advertised, as criminal groups look to gain an edge in the creation of novel attack tools, with openings for penetration testers (12%) having grown, too, driven by a push to uncover flaws in better‑protected networks.

Strangely, the analysis claims not to have identified any significant increase in the demand for AI specialists, despite a rising number of dark web forums seeing chatter about the impact of LLMs on the shadow economy.

By comparison, Kaspersky found that while more conventional criminal roles are also being sought out online, they are in much smaller numbers.

Of the roles advertised on the dark web, Kaspersky found 11% were for money launderers tasked with disguising illicit funds through complex transactions. “Carders” (6%) were targeted for their specialisation with payment data theft and monetisation, and “traffers” (5%) were being courted to help funnel victims toward phishing sites and malware downloads.

Salary expectations for these roles varied sharply by specialisation, with reverse engineers commanding the highest compensation, averaging over $5,000 (£3,811) a month, followed closely by pen testers at $4,000 (£3,049) and developers at $2,000 (£1,524). 

While those with legitimate skills earned a paycheck, the study found that overt criminals, on the other hand, tended to receive a fixed percentage of a team’s income. 

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Money launderers, for example, averaged 20%, while carders and traffers earned approximately 30% and 50% of a criminal outfit’s income, respectively, evidence that scarce, high-impact skills are worth a premium price.

Within these illicit roles, the hiring process is fairly complex. Over the past three years, Kaspersky said that dark web employers have raised the bar for applicants, introducing tests, stricter experience requirements, and security checks to guard against infiltration and espionage. 

“The shadow job market is no longer peripheral; it’s absorbing the unemployed, the underage, and the overqualified,” said Alexandra Fedosimova, digital footprint analyst at Kaspersky.

“Many arrive thinking that the dark web and the legal market are fundamentally alike, rewarding proven skills over diplomas, with the dark web even offering some benefits, like offers landing within 48 hours and no HR interviews. However, not many realise that working on the dark web can lead to prison.”

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