The dark web consists of hidden pages that can only be accessed through specialist technologies and web browsers. It is used by journalists and political activists who need to maintain anonymity to ensure their safety. However, the dark web more commonly hits headlines for its role in criminal activities; in common perception, the dark web is a place where drugs, weapons, and exploitation are rife.
So long as your staff don’t have access to the dark web (via one of these specialist technologies), this may seem like an irrelevant concern. But drugs and weapons aren’t the only commodities traded on the dark web; data can also be sold. This includes compromised account credentials, credit card details, addresses, and social security numbers. You might not even know that your organization has been hacked, but your company and employee details could end up for sale.
Dark web monitoring solutions continually scan the dark web to find leaked data and areas where your business details have been used fraudulently. They can also scan the dark web to find information regarding planned attacks and known exploits affecting your organization that may have been shared on forums. This information is invaluable as it can be used to strengthen your own internal defenses; you can bolster your defenses and patch the vulnerabilities before they can be used in an attack against your organization.
A good dark web monitoring solution should allow you wide visibility into the dark web, without your IT or security staff venturing into it themselves. This prevents admins from putting themselves at risk or having to be exposed to elicit and dangerous content. To achieve this, the solution should flag keywords relevant to your organization. You are then able to monitor the threat as it evolves, to ensure you can respond appropriately.
There is not one single dark web monitoring solution for all use cases – some are fully automated, some require a team of experts to run, and some utilize ML and AI to provide accurate and relevant insights. In this guide, we explore some of the top dark web monitoring solutions and focus on key features, subscription options, and who they’re best suited for.