What Is the Dark Web? The Importance of Dark Web Monitoring

When it comes to the cyber security of your business, you can’t afford to ignore the dark web. Sure, it sounds like a comic book villain, but the dangers are very real—even if not everything you think you know about the dark web is true. Read on to learn about the dark web and the importance of dark web monitoring.

Dispensing With Dark Web Myths

What we all think about as the internet is actually just what is on the surface. The surface web is easily accessed and searchable using common browsers such as  Chrome, Microsoft, Safari and Firefox. Anyone can view the information on the surface web.

The deep web includes protected areas, not accessible to everyone. It’s behind closed doors where company files are kept, sensitive medical information, banking files, etc. You need a key to get in, usually in the form of a login and password. The deep web is not the dark web, though some foreign languages use the words interchangeably.

The dark web is virtually invisible to all browsers except a few, including Tor. To access the dark web, you need specific software, configurations and authorizations. And you need to know where you want to go within its cluster of networks called darknets.

The dark web is totally unregulated. Darknets are not searchable and interactions on them are untraceable. It is for that reason that the dark web is a haven for hackers and cyber criminals.

But the dark web itself is legal and there are people using it for legitimate activities. 

How Your Data Gets on the Dark Web

If you have made a purchase, searched for information, logged in to social media or done any of a number of common internet activities in the last two decades, information about you has been captured and stored somewhere. Much of it is stored in the deep web (credit card authorizations on a secure site). But much more has been shared willingly and openly. (Did you read every privacy policy you agreed to?) 

Data brokers gather information, package it and sell it. That data ends up on the dark web to be sold (legally or illegally). When you hear in the news about a breach where user accounts were compromised — that data ends up for sale on the dark web.

There are ways to protect your personal and business data, but the genie is out of the bottle for any data already on the dark web (or that has been breached but not yet sold). That is where dark web monitoring comes in.

Dark Web Monitoring

Dark web monitoring products scan the dark web in real time, looking for compromised credentials related to you or your business. Your managed service provider (MSP) configures the monitoring software to work simultaneously with your endpoint protection — creating a service ticket the minute your credentials go up for sale on the dark web.

The whole point of this service is to discover any compromised data BEFORE it results in a breach for your company. Accounts can be locked or credentials can be changed the moment an alert is sounded, preventing a variety of cyber crimes.

As an Aeko Technologies client, dark web monitoring is included in your Ultimate Security package. If you have any questions about monitoring  or any other IT service, feel free to contact us or book a meeting for a quick consultation. We’d be happy to help with whatever you need.