The information a hacker needs to access your company’s IT network — including your financial accounts and/or those of your customers — could very likely be for sale on the “Dark Web” right now.
Dark web monitoring can help you find out if it is, but lots of people are asking the same question, “is dark web monitoring worth it?” Let’s find out!
What is Dark Web Monitoring?
Before we answer the question “is dark web monitoring worth it,” let’s take a look at what dark web monitoring actually is. The dark web is like an alternative version of the internet. It features a decentralized network of websites, built with anonymity in mind (remember that drugs website “Silk Road” from 2013? That was on the Dark Web).
By routing communication through a multitude of servers using advanced encryption, it’s the perfect place for people who don’t want to be found to hide out and run their businesses. Some people do use the dark web legitimately as it’s excellent for anonymity, but it’s also a hotbed for criminal activity, and often provides a marketplace for hacked data to be bought and sold.
“Dark web monitoring” is a service we run that track various sites on the dark web to identify data breaches (to see if anyone is offering your passwords for sale!).
The types of risks that can be exposed through Dark Web Monitoring include:
Third-party breaches (LinkedIn was hacked in 2009, whatever your password was then is now for sale)Data dumps to hacking forums and criminal chatrooms (a hacker who breached a service you use may share what they’ve stolen)P2P & Accidental leaksImpersonationsDomain Spoofing & Potential Threats(if you’d like, just ask us and we will explain the above in more detail!)
Is Dark Web Monitoring Worth It?
Some people question the value of dark web monitoring because it’s not able to prevent the spread of the stolen data. Once information is on the dark web, it’s out there forever, and there’s not much you can do about that. But the key value here is security awareness. If your business is unaware there’s been a breach, it can’t act. With dark web monitoring, the same business can receive an early warning that there’s a potential security risk and take action to prevent against it.
Stopping breaches is only part of online security; how you respond to risks is another, and in this area, dark web monitoring offers a lot of value. Let our team help you stay ahead of data breaches, threats, or attacks against your organisation.
What does our service look like?
So glad you asked! Our Dark Web Security monitoring service is just one of the Security Services that EPX offer, it includes the following:
24/7/365 dark web monitoring
Searching the most secretive parts of the Dark Web and criminal hacker underground, we continuously run searches for your credentials 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Mitigating threats in real-time
We proactively monitor your company domain name & email addresses in real-time and are alerted straight away when a leak is detected, so we can act immediately.
We scour millions of sources on the dark web
We monitor millions of sources including botnets, criminal and black-market sites that sell credentials; repositories that post these publicly; peer-to-peer networks; forums; private networks; bulletin boards; chat rooms; malicious websites; blogs; and social media sites found only on the Dark Web (we even monitor some locations on the “normal internet”!)
Safe & secure
Our service is safe and secure connecting to multiple Dark Web services including Tor, I2P and Freenet, to search for compromised credentials. It’s completely risk-free and there is no need to connect any of your software or hardware to these high-risk services directly.
Threat predictions
Our platform uses sophisticated human and artificial threat intelligence. It enables us to predict industry patterns long before they become trends so we have intelligence to act quickly and keep you and your staff safe.
Extensive logging & reporting
Our extensive logging and reporting capabilities allow us to track and triage incidents so we can create effective policies and procedures to minimise any future risk.
In summary
If one of your company or personal usernames & passwords for any website show up for sale online, we will find it and start investigating immediately.
EPX offers a full outsourced IT Department to companies across the UK - if you're interested in learning more, please get in touch.JTNDZGl2JTIwaWQlM0QlMjJzbGlkZUJ1dHRvbiUyMiUyMGNsYXNzJTNEJTIyc2lkZS1idXR0b24lMjIlM0VDb250YWN0JTIwVXMlMjBUb2RheSUyMSUzQyUyRmRpdiUzRQ==
