Shine a Light on the Cyber Criminal World with Dark Web Monitoring

There’s a place on the internet where buyers and sellers do business, where people help and support each other in their goal to run a profitable organization. It might sound like the internet where you hang out, but it’s not. What we’re talking about is an underground digital world, and what goes on there is the reason why you want dark web monitoring.

The dark web is a part of the internet that’s hidden from traditional browsers. It’s hard to get to, and it’s dangerous. This is a cyber criminal ecosystem, and while you don’t want to go there yourself, you need to know what’s going on there to prevent a cyber attack. And that’s where dark web monitoring comes in.

Dark web monitoring is a security tool that scans the internet underworld for information that connects your company with possible cyber criminal activity.

The scanning tool works similar to a regular internet browser, and it looks for:

• Compromised corporate accounts
• Impersonations
• Stolen proprietary information
• Peer-to-peer data leaks
• Domain look-alikes
• Your corporate name in cyber criminal chatter

Yes, you read that right – cyber criminal chatter. In the course of doing business together, criminals may reveal that a cyber attack is going to take place or has already happened to you or a company you’re associated with, like a vendor or customer.

Let’s take a closer look:

• How Dark Web Monitoring Prevents Cyber Attacks
• Dark Web Monitoring in Your Cyber Security Strategy
• Are You Asking the Right Question About Dark Web Monitoring?

How Dark Web Monitoring Prevents Cyber Attacks

Cyber criminal tactics have evolved to the point where it’s possible for intruders to evade traditional technical barriers such as antivirus. By uncovering where your company information resides in the cyber criminal world, dark web monitoring provides a layer of security that shines a light on activity that may otherwise go unnoticed.

These days, it’s possible for a cyber criminal to have a presence in a network for months without being detected. They’ll remain inconspicuous for as long as possible until they’re confident they can make their next move. Then they may do something small to see if they get detected, and keep going further and further until they’re set up for the kill.

How does the intruder get in? They may have bought the login credentials of one of your employees from a bad actor whose specialty is collecting account access. That employee may not even know they were tricked by the phishing email that harvested their email and password. They could have used their company email to sign up for a web service and used the same password for different accounts.

Whether they made an error in judgment or didn’t practice secure behavior, when something like this shows up in dark web monitoring, it cues IT to investigate and shut off the entryway, which may simply be having the employee change their password.

Dark Web Monitoring in Your Cyber Security Strategy

Dark web monitoring is just one layer in a comprehensive cyber security strategy. It works to both identify assets that need to be protected and detect possible intrusions. As with any security tool used alone, you can get a false sense of confidence in your security stature. However, used together with other technical and non-technical tactics, it’s a valuable resource for gathering intelligence about what’s happening in the dark web that concerns your company and your people.

Are You Asking the Right Question About Dark Web Monitoring?

We’ve been hearing that many IT companies are using dark web monitoring as a main selling point. Our conversations, however, go in a different direction when we help these business leaders and IT managers understand how all the pieces of an advanced security strategy fit together. Then instead of just asking if we can provide dark web monitoring, they ask – do we have gaps in security?

No need to guess at the answer to that question. Get a cyber security assessment and find out where you’re strong and where you’re weak. You’ll get actionable recommendations that will help you improve the way you manage cyber risks.

Schedule a cyber security assessment today.