If you think your business security would benefit from a dark web scan, then it’s important to know some of the key pieces of information that could come up for your business. Knowing what malicious actors have gotten their hands on and how they may have approached your business for an attack may surprise you, but it also prepares you for making the security decisions necessary to stay one step ahead of the bad actors.
Old Employee Passwords
A dark web scan can reveal the email of addresses of employees that no longer work for your company. Even if those employees left years ago, their business email address can still be active for service accounts they created to do their work, and those accounts may be exploited by malicious actors to attack your business now. In the worst-case scenario, you may find that an old employee’s email was not shut down or that a third-party account still has access to sensitive information.
Hashed Passwords
One odd piece of information that could appear on a dark web scan is a password listed as an extended series of seemingly random letters and numbers. This would not be that account’s actual password, but it does mean the hashed version of the account’s password was found and leaked onto the dark web. A hashed password just means it is still encrypted, and while this might sound safe, threat actors can decrypt these hashed passwords to gain access to that account. They can then start using that password on other accounts associated with the email address and plan larger attacks with the information they gain.
Irregular Account Activity
Sometimes information associated with your company that is found on a dark web scan doesn’t initially appear to make much sense. For instance, a scan may find numerous fake emails or a large number of users linked to the same password. However, this is valuable information for your business because while creating fake emails may be something employees do when they need a throw-away account to quickly access something, malicious actors will also use fake emails when trying to attack a company.
Also, if multiple users appear to be linked to one password in a short span of time, then that likely means a malicious actor thought that password would give them access to one of the listed accounts. In short, the irregular activity that can be found on a dark web scan can clue you in on how your business is being approached by malicious actors.
Summary
When scanning the dark web for information associated with your business, a lot of information that may have slipped your mind or that you weren’t aware of can be found. Old passwords, hashed versions of passwords, and even strange activity associated with your business can come up. While these three security risks will appear on a dark web scan, it is not an exhaustive list of what a dark web monitoring service will provide. If you think it’s time you scanned the dark web for your business, then our security specialists here at Robinett Consulting want to help and provide the follow up advice you need to keep your business running safely and smoothly.
