Dark Web Education Hub

Dark web monitoring solutions

More resources

Fighting cybercrime through dark web monitoring

The dark web is a crucial source for threat intelligence – provided you have the right dark web monitoring solution. The dark web consists of sites that can only be accessed through a specific browser (most commonly TOR or Freenet) that uses encryption, rerouting, and IP scrambling to protect the privacy and anonymity of its users. That makes this part of the internet an ideal location for cybercriminals to share tools, exchange information and buy and sell services they can use in cybercrime. This also makes the dark web a critical source for security analysts, who can monitor conversations about the latest tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) used by cybercriminals as well as the compromised data, tools, and services discussed or transacted between threat actors.

Because there is no published directory of sites or hierarchy of information on the dark web, finding sources to monitor requires considerable expertise. Dark web monitoring must be done covertly, to keep security teams anonymous and to avoid exposing sensitive company information.

Cybersixgill offers fully automated threat intelligence solutions with powerful dark web monitoring capabilities. Collecting intelligence from 10x more dark web sources and extracting data 24x faster than our competitors, Cybersixgill’s dark web monitoring technology lets security teams know what threat actors are planning – before they strike.

What happens on the dark web? 

Dark web monitoring solutions seek out and track criminal and illicit activity across a variety of sources.

Limited-access underground forums

Underground forums are established sites where reputed threat actors convene to discuss and transact the tools of their trade. These forums are arranged by thematic categories, where users post and reply to threads. Discussions can range from harmless, mundane topics to malicious cybercriminal tactics, tools and procedures, with many threat actors using these forums to transact the illicit goods and services needed to develop sophisticated cyber attacks.

Paste sites and code repositories

These are sites where users can upload large amounts of text, including compromised credentials, code, malware and data exposed during data breaches.

Illicit markets

These sites are dedicated to buying and selling illegal physical items such as weapons and drugs as well as digital items like compromised credit card numbers and corporate account credentials.

By constantly and automatically monitoring dark web sources, security teams can access a broad array of threat intelligence.

  • Chatter. Intel derived from cybercriminal discourse, including conversations about the latest vulnerabilities and cyberattack methods, ways to carry out attacks, the latest security threats and the preferred TTPs of specific threat actors.

  • Attacks-as-a-service. Cybercriminals turn to the dark web to hire others to carry out attacks such as network access and compromised infrastructure attacks.

  • Products for sale. Cybercriminals can buy and sell attack methods such as ransomware or phishing kits. Data for sale can include credit card numbers, credentials and access to active systems.

  • Software-as-a-service. Many components of a malware or ransomware attack can be purchased on the dark web.

  • Underground identities. While the real-life identities of cybercriminals on the dark web remain anonymous, security teams can follow and track underground identities that can be helpful in building profiles of key threat actors.

Cybersixgill dark web monitoring solutions 

Cybersixgill is dedicated to equipping organizations with the insights they need to proactively defend against malicious cyberattacks – before they materialize. We empower teams with agile, automated and contextual cyber threat intelligence that can expose threats, preempt attacks and streamline threat intelligence within the organization.

Our dark web monitoring technology collects data from the most extensive base of sources in the industry. Fully automated collection and source-infiltration gives us the ability to scrape data that is inaccessible to other vendors, including high-value sources with complex CAPCHA and posts that have since been deleted.

Using powerful NLP and OCR algorithms, we process data in all languages and formats, relying on autonomous translation and image-to-text extraction of content to deliver real-time insight into dark web threats. Leveraging advanced AI and ML algorithms, we index, correlate, analyze, tag and filter each bit of intelligence, enriching it with context about the nature, source and evolution of the threat. Along with comprehensive threat actor profiles, our dark web monitoring intelligence helps security teams protect their organizations more effectively.

Cybersixgill’s solutions 

Cybersixgill provides several tools for dark web cyber security¸ enabling organizations to stay ahead of cyberattacks.

API Integration

Cybersixgill’s vast collection of cyber threat intelligence data can also be consumed, via an application programming interface (API) that integrates directly into existing workflows and system architectures to address multiple use cases & functionalities. The API offering supports database queries and query-based notifications, actionable alerts tailored to your organizational assets, automated feed of malicious IOCs, detection of leaked user credentials, real-time feed of CVE-related events and developments, multi-tenant (MSSP) configurations and more. A new integration per customer request can be created within a week. Our threat intelligence feeds are structured in the STIX format, making it easy to integrate into other security solutions or deliver intelligence to a security operations center.

Investigative Portal

Cybersixgill’s Investigative Portal provides threat intelligence with real-time context and actionable alerts that allow security teams to conduct covert investigations. With this Cybersixgill solution, security teams can search and deep-dive into unmatched intelligence data, prioritizing and responding to threats that are targeting critical business assets and systems. By conducting in-depth threat intelligence investigations, teams can help their organizations reduce risk exposure, avoid incidents and minimize damage.

DVE Intelligence

Cybersixgill’s Dynamic Vulnerability Exploit (DVE) Intelligence provides an end-to-end solution with agile threat intelligence for vulnerability management. This Cybersixgill solution tracks threats from vulnerabilities and assigns scores based on the likelihood that threat actors will exploit a given vulnerability in the next 90 days. Where other technologies for rating vulnerabilities focus nearly exclusively on severity, Cybersixgill’s focus on probability enables security teams to prioritize remediation more effectively.

Why choose Cybersixgill?

Cybersixgill’s automated data collection capabilities enhances cyber crime prevention, ransomware detection, malware prevention and vulnerability remediation by providing organizations with exclusive, real-time access to the largest database of deep, dark and clear web threat activity available. 

With Cybersixgill, your security teams can:

  • Expose threat actor activity in any language, format or platform.

  • Preempt and block threats as they emerge, before they can be weaponized in an attack.

  • Streamline threat management by seamlessly integrating threat intelligence into existing security stacks according to the unique needs, assets and workflows of the organization.

FAQs

What is the dark web?

The dark web is a part of the internet that is intentionally hidden from standard search engines, making sites much more difficult to find. Data is encrypted, users’ identities are protected, and URLs are not listed anywhere, requiring users to know the URL of the website to find it. Because they’re designed for anonymity and privacy, many dark web locations are places where illegal goods and services are sold, where tools and information for cyberattacks are shared, and where discussions about cybercrime are hosted. This makes the dark web a rich source of threat intelligence.

What is the deep web vs dark web?

The deep web is a part of the Internet that is access restricted, and not designed for public consumption. These include personal email communications, private databases, restricted content, password-protected sites, sites protected by registration portals and pay walls, and other generally legitimate – but private – information. The dark web, on the other hand, is an encrypted ecosystem of overlay networks that exist on top of our internet infrastructure, but separate from the World Wide Web. The dark web is unindexed, unregulated, and cannot be accessed by standard internet browsers. Its sites are not “web” sites, but “onion” sites - with cryptographic domain names compromising a randomized string of letters and numbers ending in the .onion suffix. Accordingly, the dark web can only be accessed by specialized software which encrypts, reroutes and anonymizes web traffic to mask users' IP addresses, rendering their online activities untraceable.

What is dark web monitoring?

Dark web monitoring is the practice of tracking the activity in conversations on dark web locations to develop threat intelligence. Dark web monitoring solutions make it easier for organizations to gain access to automated, real-time information about the latest discussions concerning vulnerabilities, TTPs of threat actors, and information which has recently been exposed through data breaches.