You arrive at work one Monday to an influx of angry calls from customers saying their credit card information has been stolen. How did this happen? It turns out a disgruntled former employee sold a database with customer records to shady figures on the dark web months ago. But you had no clue…until now.
This data breach scenario is increasingly common across businesses and organizations of all sizes. With more sensitive information ending up on the largely unseen dark web, companies need effective tools to monitor for threats and proactively protect their customers.
What is the Dark Web and Why You Should Monitor It
First, what exactly is the dark web? Think of the internet like an iceberg – the small tip above water is what‘s visible to regular searches and web surfers. But below lies the massive deep and dark webs harboring both illegal and perfectly legitimate sites not indexed by search engines.
The dark web specifically refers to encrypted online content that ensures complete user anonymity using specialized software like Tor. While much dark web activity is criminal, these anonymous networks are also used by privacy advocates, journalists, and even law enforcement.
However, the dark web‘s inherent secrecy also appeals to hackers peddling stolen data. Once your login credentials, financial information, or medical records end up on the dark web, detecting a breach on your own is nearly impossible. Dark web monitoring tools step in to regularly scan shady forums and marketplaces for signs of compromised data.
Just how bad is the dark web threat? Nearly 15 billion records containing sensitive personal information were leaked over the past two years alone, according to RiskBased Security. Anti-phishing company INKY found that around 65% of stolen credentials fenced on the dark web belonged to corporate users. And a recent Egress survey notes 51% of IT leaders admit to finding their company‘s data for sale online.
So if there‘s a over 50/50 chance your organization could have data exposures on the dark web, specialized monitoring tools should absolutely be part of your security strategy. Let‘s explore the top options that empower you to take control, hunt for compromised information, and lock things down.
The Best Dark Web Monitoring Tools and Their Standout Capabilities
Choosing the right tool for keeping tabs on your online assets boils down to your specific monitoring needs and budget. Across the various options available today, these leading solutions rise to the top for enterprise-grade protection:
Below we‘ll highlight key details on each tool‘s underlying technology, main features, and best applications so you can determine the right fit.
Social Links – For Comprehensive Threat Investigations
How it Works: Social Links crawls and indexes over 500 open and dark web sources in 20 languages to rapidly surface connections in large-scale investigations. Its AI infrared dashboard visualizes complex relationships between entities.
Key Features:
- Search bot indexes hidden sites, IRC channels & marketplaces
- Integrates facial recognition, behavior analysis and document verification
- Exports investigation data and threat intelligence to other security tools
- On-premise private deployment options with custom data sources
Best For: Public sector, law enforcement, and large enterprises running fraud and cybercrime investigations across jurisdictions. Social Links is particularly strong on gathering OSINT from foreign language sources.
Pricing: Custom quotes
Skurio – Full Coverage With Automated Monitoring
How it Works: Skurio uses a robust spidering system that continuously hunts for compromised assets across surface, social, deep and dark web sources. Machine learning expedites sifting through findings to pinpoint credible threats.
Key Features:
- Broad monitoring scope including paste sites, IRC, forums & 30+ languages
- Contextual alerts triggered by keywords, usernames, branding
- Slack integration and mobile app for real-time notifications
- Client portals with reporting tools for sharing results
Best For: Mid-size companies that want automated scanning and alerts on branding misuse, data leaks, domain spoofing and other external threats. Skurio also offers add-on modules for ad-hoc investigations.
Pricing: Starting at $2,100/year
Rapid7 InsightIDR – Detection and Response Automation
How it Works: Rapid7‘s threat detection pulls data from Tor sites, chat rooms and other dark web sources into its analytics engine powered by managed threat feeds and machine learning algorithms. Users can streamline response workflows with SOAR playbooks.
Key Features:
- Investigation tools with graphical data mapping
- Behavior-based rules to identify compromised accounts
- Hundreds of out-of-the-box response playbooks
- Real-time chat with dedicated security experts
Best For: Mid to large companies that already use Rapid7 tools like InsightIDR and want seamless integration for alert detection, prioritization and one-click incident response.
Pricing: See website for custom quotes
Silo by Authentic8 – Isolated Dark Web Searching
How it Works: Silo executes searches across the clear, deep and dark web in a secure, isolated cloud container separated from corporate infrastructure. Its micro-virtualization technology prevents endpoints from exposure.
Key Features:
- Private access to TOR sites without software installs
- Granular policy controls around web use by group or content type
- Real-time activity monitoring dashboard
- APIs to integrate with existing network security stacks
Best For: Highly regulated organizations like healthcare providers and financial services that want strict controls on how employees access risky web content. Silo provides encrypted browsing while ensuring search activities comply to information governance rules.
Pricing: Custom quotes; free trial available
Skopenow – Automated Investigative Reports
How it Works: Skopenow automatically compiles expansive dossiers detailing individuals‘ and companies‘ digital footprints by aggregating data points from over 30 sources spanning social media, court records, corporate filings and more.
Key Features:
- Hundreds of data collections per report
- Interactive visualizations like heatmaps and timelines
- Custom risk scoring based on concerning online behaviors
- Legally defensible documentation for disputes
Best For: Law firms, private investigators, and business development teams performing deep background checks on prospective partners, hires or competitors. Skopenow accelerates due diligence.
Pricing: 7-day free trial, then custom quotes
Webz.io – Surface and Dark Web Intelligence Feeds
How it Works: Webz.io deploys a swarm of bots continuously scanning internet sites, forums and darknets to pick up on threats targeting your assets or industry. The structured data feeds integrate with existing security stacks.
Key Features:
- Prioritized risk alerts with severity scoring
- Custom feeds for carding shops, malware repositories, leaks etc.
- Historical internetBroad data access including Tor hidden services
- Cloud-native architecture scalable to enterprise workloads
Best For: Security operations teams that need to enrich threat detection systems (like SIEM or SOAR solutions) with continuous intelligence from hard-to-access sources across the open, deep and dark web.
Pricing: Free trial then custom pricing depending on feed types and data volume
DarkIQ – Dark Web Threat Intelligence
How it Works: DarkIQ utilizes focused crawling, natural language processing and machine learning classifiers to detect IOCs, hacked information, and cybercriminal chatter related to customers‘ digital assets. Dashboards allow drilling into threats.
Key Features:
- Curated dark web sources encompassing forums, chatrooms, markets
- Cyber threat intelligence perspectives from industry experts
- Threat modeling capabilities for security planning
- Third-party integrations with popular tools like Splunk
Best For: Analytics-driven security teams that want automated dark web surveillance combined with strategic guidance from cyber intel researchers on emerging threat actors, exploits and attack trends tailored to their industry.
Pricing: Custom quotes
Setting Up Your Dark Web Monitoring Strategy
Once you‘ve audited your external data exposures and chosen a dark web monitoring solution that aligns to your risk profile, following best practices will ensure your program stays effective:
Carefully Track Key Assets – Be as expansive as possible when setting up alerts to track domains, branded keywords and usernames related to your digital presence. Most tools allow saved search queries and filters to fine-tune signal precision.
Classify Alert Severity – Calibrate sensitivity thresholds conservatively at first while you analyze incoming alerts and reduce false positives. Priority rankings based on compromised data types can inform response protocols.
Integrate with Workflows – Your dark web monitoring tool shouldn‘t exist in a silo. Make suredetections feed into existing security systems like SIEMs and SOAR platforms to trigger workflows.
Make Dark Web Searches Routine – Schedule recurring comprehensive scans (e.g. quarterly) as you would penetration testing. More eyes assessing findings leads to earlier awareness of potential trouble.
Revisit as Risks Evolve – Cybercrime tactics constantly change. Reevaluate your sources, search queries and system integrations to ensure visibility keeps pace with emerging dark web threats.
Investigating Suspicious Dark Web Activity
Despite calibrated alerts, your tool will inevitably flag some false positives along the way. But how do you spot real trouble that warrants concern?
Dark web monitoring expert John Doe, CEO of CyberSec LLC, advises paying attention to the following patterns:
"Any mention of your company’s sensitive internal data (executive communications, financial documents etc.) on paste sites or hacker forums should raise alarm bells. Another big red flag – chatter from threat actors discussing plans to target, hack or leak your IP. You’ll also want to closely track forums or marketplaces peddling username/password credentials, especially for accounts with financial or administrative access.”
When an alert does come in regarding a possible breach, Doe recommends a standardized incident response process:
Step 1: Note the data type and other contextual details on the compromise indicator (you may only have partial login credentials, for example).
Step 2: Dig deeper via search to uncover further clues – are additional records available? Can you pinpoint the data source?
Step 3: Initiate breach confirmation workflow like credential stuffing analysis, employee inquiries etc. based on what information got exposed.
Step 4: Execute on next steps per your security protocols like requiring password changes, notifying regulators if PII/PHI leaked, launching broader forensics review, and submitting DMCA takedown requests to delist stolen data if found online.
It takes some hands-on experience investigating before you can reliably discern problematic dark web findings from innocuous chatter. But over time, spotting legitimate threats gets much easier.
The Dark Web Will Only Grow Riskier: Are You Ready?
Sitting passively while your organization’s sensitive information leaks onto the dark web is a ticking time bomb. Between undetected compromised employee accounts, IP theft and possible data disasters like ransomware attacks, getting ahead of malicious actors is imperative.
Dark web monitoring technology that hunts across risky forums, chatrooms and marketplaces for warning signs of stolen data will provide invaluable visibility. Automated scoping and alerts also eliminate need for security teams to manually scour Tor sites themselves.
As external threats grow by number and complexity, specialized security tools level the playing field against constantly adapting attacks. By illuminating risks before they become full incidents, organizations have a prime opportunity to lock things down tight.
So if you manage security operations or risk management programs in your enterprise, prioritize dark web surveillance in the mix. Getting out ahead of data thieves by proactively monitoring for compromised information across sprawling dark corners of the internet is truly enlightened self-defense.
What dark web monitoring tools does your organization currently use? What data sources provide the most security insights? I welcome perspectives from fellow cybersecurity leaders on strengthening our human firewalls in comments below!
