Dark Web 101

​Dark Web.  We’ve heard the term bantered around a lot these days.  It sounds so…nefarious.  And to be quite honest, it can be.  But what is the dark web?  And is it really something to fear?  In short, yes.  It can be a very dangerous place.
 
To put it in context, think of the internet as an iceberg.  We all know what we see on top of the water is just a small fraction of the iceberg – that’s the internet we use everyday.  The majority of an iceberg is underwater and cannot be seen except by a select few with specialized tools.  All that ice below the iceberg?  That’s the dark web.
 
So what happens on the dark web and why do people use it?  To be honest, there is a lot of nefarious activity on the dark web.  It’s where assassinations are planned, human trafficking occurs and child pornography resides.  But it’s also where a lot of stolen information goes.
 
Here’s an analogy for you – if your car gets stolen, it goes to a chop shop.  It’s a shop that isn’t on Google Maps.  It gets disassembled and the pieces are sold off.  The dark web is where stolen data goes to get disassembled and sold off.  The dark web is the digital black market.  And it’s very possible that your information is out there.  And the dealers selling that information use a tool called The Onion Router, or TOR, for short.  It’s how they mask their IP addresses and access the dark web.
 
How do you know if your company or private data is out there?  As an average internet user, you won’t know. We’re not just talking about personal data like credit card or social security numbers though.  While a breach of that data is absolutely crippling, what about your company IP?  You could have been developing code for a year that suddenly breached and now someone else has your idea.  What about plans for a patented widget?
 
So going back to the analogy about your car.  Now that your car (your data or IP) may have been stolen, how do you go about getting it back?  And how do you prevent it from being stolen again?  Using a solution by Sovereign Intelligence, that information can be located.  That solution can uncover information you may not even know had been compromised.  Sovereign Intelligence scours the dark web to get to the places the average internet user cannot.  In addition, our solution from DarkTrace helps keep data safe by monitoring behavior inside your network (see our blog from last week) and to ward any potential threats.
 
The dark web is not for the average internet user.  As its name implies, it’s dark.  And nefarious.  And full of illegal activity.  But if your information or IP is out there, it can be recovered by the experts at Sovereign Intelligence.
 
~Donna Regan, Director of Marketing
~Andrew Trogden, CTO
~Stephen Clark, Director of Sales