What is dark web intelligence?

Dark web intelligence, also known as threat intelligence, involves gathering, analyzing, and using information obtained from the dark web for various purposes, often related to cybersecurity, law enforcement, intelligence activities, and addressing potential threats. The dark web is a secret section of the internet that only authorized users can access using tools like Tor. The dark web is famous for illegal activities, like selling hacking tools, selling stolen data, and trading prohibited products because it keeps people hidden.

Most cyber threats originate from the dark web, and one can keep an eye on them to discover new attacks and weak points before they cause trouble. By monitoring the data from the dark web, the cyber professional can identify the motives and methods used by the hackers/cybercriminals.

To watch over the dark web properly, we need special tools that gather and study information from different places. That’s where dark web intelligence feeds come into play. These feeds help cyber security professionals keep track of what’s happening in the hidden parts of the internet and can try to track dark web activity.

Advantages of dark web intelligence

The different organizations or cybersecurity professionals can engage with dark web intelligence for the following illustrated purposes:

• Data protection: Dark web intelligence helps to identify stolen or leaked credentials and assists companies in taking steps to secure or protect information. In case of stolen credentials, the company requests its users to change their credentials.

• Threat detection: By keeping an eye on the dark web, organizations can find possible cyber threats and different planned methods of hacking. It allows organizations to act before attacks can cause harm to people, businesses, or computer systems.

• Cybersecurity: Cybersecurity experts can learn the trends and demanding hacking techniques to stay ahead of the hackers to mitigate malware or vulnerability threats.

• Public safety: Government organizations can take help from dark web intelligence for public safety to prevent and intervene before the activities could happen. It is done by identifying potential threats, including terrorist activities, extremist content, or any other similar threat to the public.

• Investigation and policy making: Investigative agencies might utilize dark web intelligence to collect proof, find criminals, and reveal networks engaged in different unlawful activities. Moreover, organizations can define policies and regulations to encounter cybercrimes and other illicit activities.

Limitations of dark web intelligence

Along with benefits, there are limitations or challenges as well with dark web intelligence, as discussed below:

• Extracting reliable information: Extracting reliable information from conversations from numerous dark web resources can be challenging. Consequently, there’s a chance of gathering unimportant or false-positive data instead of gaining advantages. This situation can result in wasting resources and time.

• Language barriers: Another problem is that darknet websites can be found worldwide. There might be hidden places for bad discussions, secret markets, and sneaky cyber spying information in different languages, sometimes even the languages people speak naturally. This makes it very hard for security experts to figure out the actual dangers, which they aim at and what they plan to do.

• Safeguarding own devices: Because the dark web keeps things hidden and secret, it doesn’t protect people who use it. This means it’s simple for bad stuff to get onto our computer when we click links to get information. So, it’s a challenge to avoid malicious attacks on our devices.

Comprehending the legal and ethical dimensions of entering and utilizing the dark web holds immense importance. While legitimate justifications exist for engaging with dark web information, adhering to legal statutes and ethical principles remains imperative. Furthermore, the constraints of employing dark web information can impact users significantly. Hence, embarking on ventures within the dark web without sufficient expertise would be inadvisable.