'Number one hacker in the world' explains why the dark web is so terrifying

A top hacker who uses his skills for good has explained why the dark web is so dangerous and something you should stay away from given what is on there.

Most of us have heard of the so-called 'dark web' without really knowing too much about it other than it's a place online where you probably shouldn't be, with a load of shady sh*t going down by people hiding their identity.

It is why most of us with standard knowledge of the internet and how to use it stay clear of such high risk places in the online world, with the criminal underbelly that dominates the dark web being enough to turn even the strongest of stomachs.

Ryan Montgomery is a professional hacker, who uses his skills as a cyber security expert and specialist to expose some of the worst people in the world.

A self-titled 'child safety warrior', he created the Sentinel Foundation to expose online predators and help children who are in desperate need. And with more than one million followers over on Instagram, he's clearly gathered a loyal following who like what he does.

Appearing on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast to explain exactly what the dark web is, Montgomery revealed why it's such an awful place where a lot of bad things happen.

Ryan Montgomery is an expert in his field (Instagram / @0day)

In order to get on to the dark web, you can't use a normal browser like Google Chrome. You have to go through something called Tor, or The Onion Router, which is a software enabling anonymous communication online.

From there, you still need to know exactly where you're going to get to the 'horrible' websites described by Montgomery.

"The dark web itself isn't a marketplace like what you're thinking, so the black market or whatever you want to call it," he explains.

"Once you're connected to the dark web, Tor, you still need to know where to go to visit these horrible websites. Imagine a very long string of letters and numbers and the website, instead of being 'dot com', it'll be 'dot onion'."

The dark web is a dangerous place (Getty Stock Images)

He adds: "You can't visit those websites in a regular browser; you have to do that while you're connected to The Onion Router and then you can go to a thing called the 'Hidden Wiki' which will show you all different categories of these websites with links to them."

So what is there? Grim stuff. Lots of it.

"There's marketplaces, there's horrible things on there like you said, for kids, and even murder for hire," Montgomery says.

"There's counterfeit money, there's fake IDs, there's all kinds of different websites that do horrible things."

Montgomery says that while the dark web is good for normal internet browsing due to the added protection it gives you online, it is 'incredibly slow' and not something he would recommend based off of that. Instead, he only uses the dark web to catch creeps.

Another hacker, who is also using his skills for good, anonymously explained to VICE that he has seen some truly scary things on the dark web, such as seeing hospitals get held for ransom by criminals.

"I don't think we have to worry too much about our nuclear arsenal being taken over movie style and used against us," the same hacker said on what the future might look like.

"But I do think we have to worry about major impacts to financial markets or potential impacts to things like electricity production facilities."