Understanding The Dark Web Monitoring Landscape

In the past, it was believed that only those with something to hide would be on the dark web. But in today’s world, there’s a growing need to monitor the dark web due to an exponential increase in cyber attacks. The dark web has become an alternative playground for hackers and cyber criminals who have taken advantage of its anonymity to commit crimes such as identity theft, credit card fraud, and hacking.

So can dark web monitoring help your company stay protected?

But first.

What is Dark Web Monitoring?

Your personal information is worth a lot to cybercriminals, and much of it can be found in a surprising place: the dark web.

Dark web monitoring is the process of scanning the dark web for stolen data in order to detect and prevent fraud. This process is sometimes part of a larger service called identity theft protection, which has become popular as cybercrime rates have increased.

Having your sensitive data exposed on the Dark Web can put you at risk of identity fraud. 

How Does Personal Information Get On the Dark Web?

In the modern world, information is money. And for criminals, that includes your personal data. The dark web is a collection of thousands of websites that require special software to access.

It’s become an online black market where hackers sell stolen personal and financial information. Your social security number, passwords, credit card numbers and other sensitive details can be bought and sold there.

Personal information is sold and traded every day on the dark web. For example, a hacker can infiltrate a company’s network and steal millions of people’s personal information like names, emails, and credit card numbers.

Another way it gets on the dark web is by phishing scams or malware. A phishing scam occurs when you receive an email that appears to be from an official source such as your bank or credit card company. The email may ask you to click on a link to update your account information. But if you do click on the link, you’re taken to a website that looks official but is really a replica meant to gather your personal information.

Malware is another method used to steal your personal information. Hackers use it to track your computer activity, looking for passwords and other sensitive data. Sometimes they even take control of your computer and use it as part of a botnet, which they can then use for malicious activities like sending spam emails or extorting money from companies in exchange for blocking their sites.

Why use Dark Web Monitoring?

It takes a lot of time, money and effort to deal with identity theft after it happens. And once your information is out there, it’s not guaranteed you’ll ever fully recover. Some people spend years trying to clean up their credit report after identity theft.

Dark web monitoring can help prevent identity theft from happening in the first place by alerting you if your personal information appears on the dark web so you can take steps to help protect yourself before fraud happens.

Advanced dark web monitoring from Skurio can support advanced threat-hunting use cases that low-cost or free solutions can’t. 

By monitoring for potential threats and more types of leaked data that are shared or sold,

Skurio can help you:

• Investigate data breach and incidents

• Discover the sale of counterfeit or stolen branded goods

• Detect attack planning activities

• Monitor for security vulnerabilities and supply chain risks

• Develop threat intelligence tailored to your business

Defending data inside your network is no longer enough.

Unpatched servers, misconfigured ports, equipment vulnerabilities, poor password hygiene, and previous data breaches could all put your company on the radar of hackers. The Dark Web is one of the places where these criminals share, trade, and collate this information. 

Dark Web Monitoring lets you discover this - so you can mitigate risk and avoid future cyber-attacks.

Conclusion:

Monitoring dark web activity is a valuable step in preventing fraud. As a way to add an extra layer of security to your identity but manually monitoring dark web activity can be dangerous. Using company equipment can put your network and staff at risk if security teams discover illegal or disturbing content or malware. It’s also time-consuming, requiring skill and experience. So, it makes sense to automate to improve safety and productivity of your IT operations.