
Is Dark Web Monitoring Worth It? Benefits and Limitations
Discover Dark Web Monitoring, how it works, and the pros and cons of using it.

The Dark Web is a hidden part of the internet that is not indexed by traditional search engines and requires specialized software to access. The dark web is known for its anonymity and is often associated with illegal activities, such as black markets for drugs, weapons, and stolen data, but also serves legitimate purposes like hosting forums, private communications, and whistleblower platforms.
The Dark Web is a concealed layer of the internet that operates on encrypted networks and is inaccessible through standard web browsers. The hidden nature of the network serves the purpose of providing anonymity by routing communications through multiple servers, making it difficult to trace users’ locations or identities.
However, due to its unregulated nature, the Dark Web is a double-edged sword, so users should always exercise caution when navigating it.
What Is The Dark Web?
Internet content can be categorized into three different groups: the Open web, Deep web, and the Dark web.
- The open web is made up of any publicly available content that can be indexed by search engines.
- This website (expertinsights.com) is part of the open web!
- If you happened to find this article through a search engine like Google, every other result of that search is part of the open web as well. With how much of our daily lives involve perusing sites and searching the web for information, its surprising that only 4% of the internet is on the open web where anyone can access it.
- Another layer down is the deep web. The deep web is defined as any part of the internet that is not indexed by search engines.
- This is where the vast majority of content on the internet resides, about 90%, and deep web content that you may encounter every day includes pages that require a login or paywall to access.
- Any web page that isn’t allowed to be picked up in search engine results is also part of the deep web.
- The most hidden layer is called the dark web. This part of the internet is only accessible by using a specialized web browser like Tor, and is designed to make it difficult for parties like ISPs to trace activity back to an individual user.
- The dark web is ideal for those who may wish to stay anonymous.
- Although there are some legitimate use cases for the dark web, it’s also an attractive place for cybercriminals. Illegal items are often sold on the dark web, but data compromised in breaches by threat actors can be traded here as well.
What Is Dark Web Monitoring?
As organizations store more of their data online, their vulnerability to cyber-attacks is constantly increasing. Dealing with these cyber-attacks can result in higher cybersecurity costs, which then affects consumers as prices increase to offset this financial loss.
Dark web monitoring is the process of scanning the hidden parts of the internet, known as the Dark Web, to identify if personal or sensitive information that has been compromised or exposed. This information might include email addresses, passwords, credit card numbers, or other confidential details that may appear in illicit marketplaces, forums, or data dumps.
By detecting potential breaches early, dark web monitoring helps individuals and organizations protect against identity theft, fraud, and other cyber threats, enabling them to take proactive measures to secure their information.
One resource that anyone can use for free is haveibeenpwned.com. This is a tool that checks whether your email address is part of any known data breaches on the dark web.
There are also plenty of other commercial dark web monitoring solutions that we’ve covered:
Benefits Of Dark Web Monitoring
- Helps organizations become aware of data leaks that might have had delayed or no detection otherwise
- Dark web monitoring tools can scan marketplaces as well as chat rooms or forums to find compromised data
- Can serve as a source of threat intelligence, helping organizations stay on top of potential threats and prepare for future incidents
- Using tools to continuously scan hundreds of dark web sources is far more efficient than trying to use human teams for the same task, especially when IT teams tend to already be strained
- Some solutions offer additional quality of life features such as real-time alerting or integrations with other security tools
Limitations Of Dark Web Monitoring
- A lack of results on dark web monitoring tools is not a guarantee that your information hasn’t been compromised somewhere. These types of tools can only detect if your information is part of a known breach. (There is an adage for this: “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”)
- Monitoring tools also can’t delete your information from the dark web or stop others from accessing it once it’s already in been compromised and shared
- Even with a dark web monitoring tool in place, organizations still need to do their due diligence and implement appropriate security measures to minimize the chances of their company’s data ending up in places like the dark web
Some related articles from Expert Insights that you may also find useful include:
- The Top 11 Dark Web Monitoring Solutions
- Dark Web Monitoring Buyers’ Guide 2025
- The Dark Web Vs The Deep Web: What’s The Difference?
- Exploring The Depths Of The Dark Web
- Dark Web Threat Statistics