The Dark Web
How it will affect you!

To understand the Dark Web we must first look at the makeup of the Internet as a whole. There are 3 separate parts of the internet;

The Surface Web, the Deep Web, and the Dark Web.

The Surface Web or the Internet you browse on a daily basis consists of only about 10% of what is actually out there. Google, Amazon, Facebook are some examples of these.

The second part of the Internet is called the Deep Web, in this area is the items that are only accessible by passwords and are encrypted. This would include your bank, PayPal, your email and your companies cloud-based applications. Also, part of the Deep Web is the back-end programming for all of the sites such as your companies’ website (think WordPress), or the backend programming of Facebook.

Lastly is the part of the web referred to as the Dark Web. The Dark Web is not accessible from a standard browser as the entire network is encrypted. To view, it requires a special browser, such as TOR which is designed to access this network. The purpose of the encryption is to hide the user's identity and thus is it almost impossible to know who you are actually dealing with here.

What is on the Dark Web?

So, what is on the Dark Web? Just about anything you can imagine, some legal but most illegal, from drugs to illegal pornography, you can even hire a hit man! But the items that most people worry about is the personal information that is for sale here. From username and passwords to social security numbers, credit card numbers, and on. These items have been stolen through breaches in security. Think about all of the data breaches you hear about then multiply that by a large number that does not get reported. This information, once stolen can be put up for sale on the Dark Web.

With this knowledge, you can see why it is important to protect yourself and your business from information on the Dark Web. But how do you know what is out there? Companies like LifeLock can help you protect your personal information but for business information, your IT firm should be able to do a Dark Web Scan on your company domain name, which will give you a list of items that are out there about your company. We do this as a free service for our business clients and we have found LOTS of information out there. For example; one business network we scanned, with about 15 employees, came back with a report of over 40 usernames and passwords many of which were still in use! Can you imagine if someone could access your network with your credentials and what they could get to!?

We can help.

If you would like a Dark Web Scan on your company just fill out the form here and we would be happy to assist.