Dark Web Monitoring Buyers’ Guide 2024

Dark web monitoring (DWM) solutions monitor data breaches, exposed credentials and the sale of stolen data on behalf of organizations.

State of the market: Organizations are increasingly investing in dark web monitoring services to increase their visibility into employee credential exposure and brand targeting. But while the market is set to grow significantly, questions remain about the effectiveness of dark web monitoring for security teams.

In this guide, we’ll provide a brief overview of the dark web monitoring market, outline key features to look for, and share our recommendations for finding the right DWM monitoring solution.

How Dark Web Monitoring works: Dark web monitoring is a simple concept. DWM solutions gather intelligence from dark web sources, analyze it for data that may be relevant for your brand, employees or customers, conduct risk assessments. They will then provide recommendations and feed this data into an admin console for easy access.

DWM monitoring solutions monitor dark web chat rooms, hidden unindexed websites, botnets, P2P networks, social media channels, and botnets. 

• Enterprise dark web monitoring solutions are typically delivered as-a-service, with monthly billing.

Market Direction: According to Allied Market Research the dark web intelligence market was valued at $341.70 million in 2021, and is projected to reach $2.30 billion by 2031. The technology is rising in popularity as organizations look to become more proactive in identifying cyber-threats, such as exposed credentials. 

Dark web monitoring can be an effective way to uncover risks such as stolen credentials, phishing sites that are using your brand, CEO targeting attempts and any number of other risks. While they have originally been associated more with enterprise use cases, dark web monitoring is becoming more popular with SMBs, particularly for the use case of identifying stolen corporate credentials. 

We are seeing a clear trend for dark web monitoring being offered as part of, or tightly integrated with, broader cybersecurity platforms, predominantly with threat intelligence and SIEM solutions.

Dark web monitoring is also becoming more importance from a compliance perspective. DWM can help companies avoid fines and litigation by demonstrating a proactive approach to cybersecurity.

Features checklist: When looking to select a Dark Web Monitoring solution for your organization, Expert Insights recommends looking for the following features:

• Real-time alerts: This ensures that you can respond promptly to any data security breaches. Users can update passwords and login details to mitigate threats.
• Regular updates:  In practice, this means that new areas of the dark web will be covered.
• Specific Searching: Using your organization’s domain name and high-profile users, etc., to identify threats specific to your organization
• Actionable Reporting: Reports should give an overview of the current threat levels. They should also indicate the best ways to remediate issues once identified.
• Social media monitoring: Dark Web Monitoring should scan social media sites to identify leaked details. While information is unlikely to be sold on common social media sites, it can indicate where to find it. Encrypted social networks (like Telegram) are increasingly being used to share stolen information and carry out criminal activity.
• API Integration: When connected to a SIEM solution, you can enhance the effectiveness of your response. This can result in comprehensive threat detection and incident response capabilities based on anomaly detection, threat intelligence, and a pre-set rules. 

Common Dark Web Monitoring challenges: Implementing a DWM solution can be complicated to get right. Some common challenges associated with implementing dark web monitoring solutions include:

• Coverage: The deep web is estimated to account for 95% of the entire web, the dark web is a smaller portion of this. While dark web monitors do have extensive coverage, it is impossible to cover every single area.
• Alert fatigue: Dark web monitoring can produce a lot of noise, and some argue unnecessary data for security teams who should instead focus on preventative measures rather than dark web signals.
• Pricing: The cost of implementing a Dark Web Monitoring solution can be quite high. It is also worth considering the threats facing your organization to decide if dark web monitoring is the most appropriate way of combatting the threat.

Best Providers: We have produced several articles covering the dark web monitoring and broader threat intelligence space.

• The Top 11 Dark Web Monitoring Solutions

Our Recommendations: When selecting a DWM solution for your organization, we would recommend considering the following points to ensure that you find an effective and suitable solution for your needs.

• Integrations with other security tools are a vital capability. This will ensure that all attack and threat related information can be centralized, providing you with a comprehensive overview of your risk profile. 
• Have a clear use case in mind. This will help you find a solution that achieves what you need it to. If, for instance, you need a solution for compliance purposes, make sure you find one that aligns with the relevant regulatory frameworks.
• Ensuring that your solution helps you adhere to relevant compliance frameworks is essential. Wherever data is concerned, you have a responsibility to secure and protect this data. The dark web, however, works in opposition to this. An effective DWM solution is one that will make it easy to prove that your processes are carried out in accordance with these frameworks.
• Have a clear plan for managing alerts and making sure the data is used for the best security outcomes. We have all heard the phrase knowledge is power, well DWM solutions can provide you with a lot of knowledge. It’s then up to you to make use of that information and ensure it is properly utilized across your network.
• Test the service by asking for an initial audit. The remit of a DWM solution is huge – scan as much of the dark web as possible to identify stolen or leaked data. With such vast amounts of information at play, false positives are likely. Ensure that you select the right solution by picking one with a high accuracy and low false positive rate.
• While real-time reporting was mentioned in the list of key features, it is important that this reporting is accurate and useful. It should provide an update of any remediation steps already taken and suggest what else can be done. In some use-cases (mainly SMBs), using a managed service might be a good option.

Future Trends: As the dark web continues to grow, and malicious actors harness AI and ML to create more complex attacks, we expect dark web monitoring solutions to evolve in the near future. Some of the trends we expect to see include:

• AI / Machine Learning integration
  • The current trend across all forms of technology is to integrate AI to enhance capabilities
  • We expect this trend to continue within DWM solutions
  • AI and ML will make it easier to navigate the dark web and identify information relating to your organization
  • AI can then assist with mitigating a threat by identifying the most effective solution
  • This technology will be able to drive automations, meaning that your SOC team do not need to trawl the dark web themselves
• Deeper Coverage
  • As DWM platforms continue to innovate and upgrade their capabilities, they will be able to access more of the dark web
  • This is an endless challenge as the dark web is ever expanding
  • DWM solutions will become faster, and better able to identify suspicious activity
• Integration of User Behavior Analytics
  • Any unusual behavior that indicates compromised credentials or insider threats can be flagged
  • Unfamiliar login locations and accessing files that they do not usually access will indicate a malicious actor
  • If any of these traits are detected, alerts can be trigged, ensuring that security teams are kept up to date with threats

Further Reading:

• The Dark Web Vs The Deep Web: What’s The Difference?
• The Top 8 Continuous Security Monitoring Tool
• Paul Reid on The Importance Of Threat Intelligence In The Fight Against Cybercrime