Dark Web Monitoring
The dark web is one of the most mysterious online places, often seen as a small corner of the world filled with criminals and hackers. However, many legitimate uses of the dark web can be leveraged to keep your business safe. That's where dark web monitoring comes in. Dark web monitoring is a form of a cyber security strategy that involves actively searching for sensitive data from your organization, including usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, and more that might have been stolen or leaked onto the dark web.
What Is The Dark Web?
Before we get into what dark web monitoring is, it's important to understand what the dark web is. The deep and dark corners of the web consist primarily of websites that use specially coded networks such as Tor and I2P to remain hidden from search engine crawlers and traditional ISPs (Internet Service Providers). This allows for anonymous communications, low-cost access to digital goods, services like gambling and drug dealing as well as other illegal activities.
Why Monitor The Dark Web?
Monitoring the dark web offers organizations a unique insight into potential threats against their businesses by providing access to valuable intelligence such as stolen accounts, malicious payloads, and notification when employee information has been compromised. In addition to this risk assessment capability, many organizations leverage their monitoring process to detect insider threats – i.e., employees using company resources for dangerous purposes or planning an attack on their systems.
Identifying Threats with Dark Web Monitoring
Organizations use various methods for identifying threats associated with their business on the deep/dark web, including:
- Data scraping technology: Data scraping involves collecting data from public sources across both public-facing websites and private chatrooms to gather information about potential attackers/threat actors within an organization or industry and any open-source intelligence-related threats against their operations.
- Dark net intelligence: Dark net intelligence involves gathering intel from anonymous forums related to cybercrime where threat actors share information related to cyberattacks or recent data breaches. By actively participating in these forums, security teams can gain valuable insight into potential attacks before they happen by observing criminal activity trends and any chatter related specifically to their organization/industry sector.
