The dark web, known for its association with a wide range of criminal activities, is a concern for cybersecurity professionals due to its potential impact on their work. The dark web's anonymity has made it a magnet for various criminals, including cybercriminals, who view it as a secure realm beyond law enforcement's grasp.
Over the past decade, the dark web has unfortunately evolved into an integral part of the cybercriminal ecosystem. It serves as a hub for hacking communities to communicate, select targets and plan attacks. It hosts marketplaces where cybercriminals buy and sell malware, exploits and stolen data while concealing the technical infrastructure required for their operations.
Understanding these dynamics is important for cybersecurity professionals to effectively combat cyber threats. Or they can look to Searchlight Cyber, the dark web intelligence company, and its dark web monitoring solution, DarkIQ.
Searchlight’s dark web traffic monitoring feature in DarkIQ is unique in its ability to deliver data on the connections between an organization's infrastructure and the dark web network, The Onion Router, or “Tor.” Live traffic data can provide organizations with early warning to a potential cyberattack, while historic traffic data stored in the platform can be used by threat intelligence and incident response teams to investigate an incident.
“Dark web traffic between Tor and the corporate network is a very reliable datapoint for identifying malicious activity, and we have seen first-hand how organizations have used it to identify cyberattacks and take preventative action before any damage was done,” said Dr. Gareth Owenson, Chief Technology Officer of Searchlight Cyber.
Taking DarkIQ’s capabilities further, Searchlight released new enhancements for the solution to arm cybersecurity professionals with deeper insight into dark web traffic to and from their network, alerting their organization to potentially malicious activity and the possibility of an attack in preparation or in progress.
These enhancements offer enhanced granularity in terms of data on dark web traffic. This includes a wealth of detailed information, such as package sizes and the number of connections originating from the dark web. This added granularity empowers security professionals by providing them with the tools to identify anomalies more effectively.
The update also introduced new visualizations that facilitate the dissection and analysis of data from various angles. These visual aids bolster the capabilities of cybersecurity experts, enabling them to better scrutinize data and enhancing their capacity to identify and respond to threats in a more efficient and precise manner.
Lastly is the new traffic splitting capability. It allows for the segmentation of data into incoming and outgoing traffic, making it simpler to pinpoint potential threats and unusual patterns. This feature streamlines the process of threat detection and analysis for security professionals using Searchlight Cyber, contributing to more robust cybersecurity practices.
“The enhancements we have made to our dark web traffic monitoring feature provide our customers with even more context, to help them assess exactly what malicious activity is taking place, and the best mitigative actions they can take,” said Owenson.
Dark web traffic monitoring is available to all DarkIQ customers.
Edited by
Alex Passett
