Cybercriminals could be selling your personal or organization’s data on the dark web without your knowledge. Through dark web monitoring, you can receive alerts when your information is found on the darknet. This way, you can find out which information is vulnerable and figure out how you can improve your online security.
In this guide, you will learn what dark web monitoring is and what benefits it can offer.
How Does Dark Web Monitoring Work?
Two common misconceptions are that dark web monitoring can remove identifying information from the darknet and prevent the sale of this data.
The truth is that dark web monitoring will only alert you when your information is found on the internet. Moreover, the provider of this service might offer advice on what you can do to prevent cybercriminals from stealing your data in the future. Examples of services are Norton LifeLock and Experian.
When you contract a provider for this service, they will use scrapers and web crawlers to look for your personal information in places where cybercriminals sell data. These places include chat rooms, forums, and peer-to-peer networks. The provider will also monitor social media feeds, blogs, malware samples, and web service servers.
Information You Should Target
To make dark web monitoring a valuable investment, companies should conduct a targeted search focused on the areas below.
- Threat tracking: this entails collecting data on the threats that target your organization and tracking them consistently. This helps organizations to better understand these threats so that they can create effective defense strategies.
- Detecting stolen credentials: once companies identify the credentials cybercriminals are stealing from them, they can, for instance, create more secure passwords. Furthermore, companies could create a system where new passwords are required for each login.
- Identifying fraud: cybercriminals use stolen credentials to run fraudulent activities. Monitoring can help companies to discover the activities cybercriminals engage in so that they can prevent fraud.
How Effective Is it?
Dark web monitoring is not a one-size-fits-all solution to keep your personal information safe. There are pros and cons to using a dark web scanning service.
Pros
- Monitoring provides crucial information that helps both individuals and companies to improve their online security.
- If you learn that your information is stolen, you can take damage control measures like getting a new PIN from your bank.
Cons
- It is impossible to scan the entire internet for stolen information. Therefore, cyber monitoring tools could fail to find all of your stolen identifying information.
- Cyber monitoring cannot stop cybercriminals from using or selling your information.
- Accessing some cybercriminal forums requires additional expertise such as familiarity with different languages. This could lead to increased expenses.
While dark web monitoring can be a valuable addition to your cybersecurity arsenal, you should use this tool alongside safety measures like creating stronger passwords, creating different passwords for different accounts, and asking for credit reports to see if anyone has opened a bank account in your name.