What is dark web monitoring?

Cybersecurity risks don’t stop at the network’s edge. They extend to the dark web, where stolen data is bought, sold, and traded. Incidents out of your control, like supply chain attacks and insider threats, mean your company’s data may end up on the dark web at some point.  

When that happens, awareness is key.  

Dark web monitoring gives you visibility into a deliberately mysterious and hidden part of the web. You’ll know when your data is leaked, and you can take steps to respond appropriately and mitigate the risk. 

What is dark web monitoring?

Dark web monitoring involves scanning dark web forums, marketplaces, and communities for leaked data associated with a company’s domain. The scan looks for leaked credentials, financial data, and personally identifiable information that threat actors could use to target an organization.

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Cybercrime on the dark web

Strip away the mysteriousness of the dark web with this eBook that looks at:

• The anatomy of the dark web and its role in cybercrime
• The real value of dark web monitoring
• Steps you can take to mitigate the risk of exposed data

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With that visibility and information, you can:

• Identify unknown breaches: Dark web monitoring helps organizations discover breaches that may have gone undetected, such as breaches impacting a third-party vendor.
• Minimize risk: Organizations can address vulnerabilities quickly—by changing leaked credentials or ramping up suspicious login monitoring—and intercept attacks before they happen.

Dark web monitoring: In-house or not?

Building and managing dark web monitoring capabilities in-house can be tricky for several reasons:

Access

Gaining access to the dark web's hidden and constantly changing sites can be challenging. It requires specialized, sometimes expensive, tools and knowledge to navigate these obscure networks. Some spaces even require vetted access.

Expense

Developing and maintaining the infrastructure needed to monitor the dark web is expensive. It requires not only the right technology but also continuous investment in tools, threat intelligence, and skilled personnel to keep up with evolving threats.

Tedious

Effective dark web monitoring demands constant vigilance. Continuously scanning, analyzing, and filtering through the data to find relevant threats can consume valuable time and resources, pulling your team away from other critical tasks.

Quality issues

Much of the information on the dark web is unverified or low-quality. Chasing irrelevant, inaccurate, or misleading data can slow down the process and take attention away from legitimate security issues.

High-level data

Even when relevant data is found—and in a language you can read—it’s often high-level and requires analysis or additional context. Raw dark web data rarely equals valuable information.

Given these challenges, managing dark web monitoring in-house is often too complex and costly for many organizations. Generally, this makes outsourcing a better option. 

Offloading dark web monitoring lets you focus on core business operations, without compromising your security posture. Outsourcing to a cybersecurity company that provides dark web monitoring allows you to leverage their expertise, tools, and infrastructure instead of your own.

How to choose a dark web monitoring service

Even better than a standalone dark web monitoring service, seek a cybersecurity solution that provides dark web monitoring as part of a more holistic, comprehensive defense. Using multiple tools for different cybersecurity needs creates operational complexity and leads to unnecessarily high costs.

Field Effect MDR Complete detects and responds to threats and vulnerabilities across your entire IT infrastructure—endpoints, networks, and cloud—external threat surface, and the dark web.

By scanning over 1000 dark web sources, digesting more than 26,000,000 records daily, MDR Complete will notify you of any data exposures that may signal an impending attack. This way, you can address the risk quickly before threat actors can use that leaked data as part of an attack.

Field Effect’s Dark Web Monitoring detects:

• Cleartext passwords, meaning credentials that are fully exposed in plain text and available for anyone to purchase or misuse.
• Hashed passwords, meaning encrypted credentials. They are still available to use, but the encryption adds a layer of inconvenience compared to cleartext.
• Financial data, which may include exposed credit card and bank account numbers. Having this sensitive information leaked could lead to financial fraud and other damages.
• Personally identifiable information, which may include names, social insurance numbers, addresses, phone numbers, and more.

Organizations requiring cyber insurance or at heightened risk of breach—such as those in the financial, legal, government, and oil and gas industries—may prefer to invest in Field Effect’s Daily Dark Web Monitoring. This upgrade allows you to detect and address exposed data on the dark web even faster. Daily dark web scans and prompt alerts minimize the window for attackers to use the exposed data as part of a cyberattack. 

Getting a handle on all your security risks

Addressing dark web risks is only one part of a greater risk management strategy. Field Effect MDR pinpoints the widest range of cybersecurity vulnerabilities, gaps, and weaknesses impacting your organization, and clear direction on how to address them.