Digital Security | Dark Web Monitoring

The dark web represents an often overlooked but increasingly crucial area of digital security risk management consideration for organizations and individuals seeking to safeguard sensitive information from being accessed and exploited by cybercriminals today. Inaccessible to ordinary web browsers, the dark web is notorious for illegal activities of just about every kind but particularly for cybercriminal activity, and especially the publishing (leaking) and sale of stolen data such as personal information and corporate secrets to cybercrime groups for exploitation such as extortion or in the case of state-sponsored threat actors, espionage.

Dark Web Monitoring is a specialised protective digital security service affording early detection of security breaches before compromised information may be exploited to destructive effect by attackers, earlier, in other words, than conventional cybersecurity measures may detect any threat.

For individuals and corporations facing rising Cyber Extortion and Cyber Espionage risks today, Dark Web Monitoring whether acquired as an in-house capability or as a discrete managed service, offers:

• A crucial component of Strategic Cyber Risk Management.
• Vital early warning of compromised accounts and assets.
• A key enabler of Resilience and additional layer of digital security.
• A key pillar of Assurance for at-risk individuals and corporations.

Understanding the Dark Web

The dark web is a segment of the internet that requires specific software, such as Tor, to access. It operates anonymously, making it a haven for illicit activities. Unlike the surface web, which is indexed by search engines, the dark web is not easily accessible, and its content is often encrypted and hosted on hidden services. This anonymity poses significant challenges for traditional cybersecurity measures, necessitating specialized monitoring tools and techniques to uncover potential threats.

The Importance of Dark Web Monitoring

Designed to detect the presence of compromised assets on the dark web, such as account credentials of corporations or of individuals and related sensitive information, Dark Web Monitoring provides visibility where IT Security and conventional cyber threat detection solutions, by definition, have none.

Indeed, where conventional measures detect an attack involving the exploitation of stolen credentials, for example, that fact that the account(s) in question were at risk could have been identified before the attack took place. This is because cybercriminals frequently use the dark web to sell stolen credentials, financial information, intellectual property, and other sensitive data. This means that the dark web can present a blind spot in terms of strategic risk for organisations relying on IT security measures alone to detect active threats, even those who have implemented advanced solutions such as XDR.

By the same token, it presents a potential opportunity for individuals or organizations to adopt a more proactive and uniquely pre-emptive digital security posture. At a time of rising Cyber Extortion and Cyber Espionage risks worldwide, Dark Web Monitoring crucially equips organisations with a capability to potentially pre-empt a destructive attack on their systems (e.g. via ransomware), or, in the case of espionage related threat, to potentially disrupt or even deny a long-term campaign to steal sensitive information from their systems. Dark web monitoring thus better enables at-risk individuals and organizations to strengthen digital security and stay ahead of cyber threats by identifying compromised data before it can be used maliciously.

Dark Web Monitoring as a Service

Dark web monitoring involves threat hunting by expert analysts using specialised tools to search for specific identifying information as specified by the client. Such information can include personal or corporate email addresses, corporate domains, credit card numbers and many other types, the discovery of which can confirm that a security breach has occurred. Once potential threats are detected, alerts are generated and expert guidance is offered enabling organizations to respond swiftly.

This is where Dark Web Monitoring as a managed service really comes into its own and provides crucial additional value for clients in bolstering digital security beyond the scope of what they might achieve independently. The experience and knowledge of Dark Web Monitoring service providers not only affords better threat detection, analysis, and higher confidence reporting, but this in turn informs more effective response and remediation in the form of tailored measures to mitigate the risks associated with the detected threats to realign and strengthen the security posture of the individual or organization going forward.

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