The dark web is an area of the internet that does not appear on the search engines most users are aware of. You cannot access it with Google, Bing, or through typing a website URL into a web browser like Chrome or Firefox, and this inability to interact with it leads many regular people to not know exactly what it is. However, having a proper understanding of what the dark web is and how it can affect your business is crucial if you want to protect your business from cyberattacks.
What is the Dark Web?
The dark web is an area of the internet below the web that people interact with in their day-to-day lives, and it gets used by many different entities for various purposes. It is significantly larger than the surface web, and it is a place people can remain anonymous. The size and anonymity of the dark web make it a common place for stolen data to be traded and illegal activities to occur. It is a part of the internet that people ranging from malicious actors to the United States government operate in to some capacity, but it is best known for illegal activity.
What is on the Dark Web?
Given the size of the dark web, it contains a wide variety of different websites, services, and tools for the people who use it. Some of the common things you can find include:
- Chatrooms used to talk about both benign and malicious topics
- Storefront websites used to sell information
- Hacking websites that hold or directly expose stolen information
- Forums used by hackers
Generally speaking, when data is stolen from a business, it will either end up on or be sold through some of these tools. Once information ends up on the dark web, it will prove impossible to remove, and this can be detrimental to your business.
How Cyber Criminals Use It
When malicious actors obtain a large number of credentials through phishing campaigns, steal information from a high value target, or perform just about any cyberattack, they will use the dark web to communicate with other criminals and then house, transfer, or sell that data. In short, finding your information on the dark web is extremely concerning because it means a malicious actor has gotten their hands on it somehow and is either communicating it to others or selling it for as little as a few dollars.
Summary
The dark web is infamously used by cyber criminals to store, transfer, or sell stolen data, and if your business has suffered a cyber attack or had information leaked by another company’s data breach, then your information may be available for malicious actors to use. While that information can’t be scrubbed completely, our team of specialists here at Robinett Consulting can help identify what information has made its way onto the dark web and give you the ability to take proactive steps to defend your business.
