Written by Kristyn Marquez, Marketing Manager
What is the Dark Web?
Are you familiar with the term “Dark Web”? We hear the term repeatedly used in social media, on the news and written in news articles. However, many people still do not understand what the Dark Web is and what it is capable of. The Dark Web is a small part of the Deep Web that requires special software to access it. Once inside, websites and other services can be accessed through a browser in much the same way as the normal web. The US government initially created this hard to access area of the internet to provide a means for anyone — including government employees and agents — to share intelligence without revealing their identities or locations. Pretty soon, criminal organizations, hacktivists, and social hackers caught on and are now using this area of the internet as a way to buy, sell and trade hundreds of thousands stolen credentials daily.
Why is every business at risk?
It is a big misconception that only large corporations are the only target to cyber hackers around the world. The truth is cybercriminals have learned that smaller attacks can be replicated easily and carried out against multiple companies-including small and medium sized business. It only takes a small number of successful attacks to yield substantial revenue. The biggest difference between a large corporation becoming victim to an attack versus a small to midsize corporation is the larger corporation will most likely have the resources to survive the disruption. In fact, some estimates say that as many as one third of small-to-medium-sized businesses were hit by ransomware in 2016, forcing many of them to halt operations completely.
Why should you hire a managed services provider to prevent a cyber related attack?
We all use our work email address and password (with some variation) to access the tools to run our business and personal lives. As you can now see, with only an email address, a password and a search engine, the bad guys can perfectly spearfish, social engineer, hack, exploit or just flat out start opening credit cards in your or your business’s name. Personally identifiable information (PII) – names, email addresses, passwords, dates of birth and IP addresses – are being stolen at alarming rates. The first step you should take in protecting your organization is to hire a reputable MSP our IT Consultant. Fundamental cybersecurity best practices include backing up data regularly, keeping software up-to-date and staying on top of the common tactics used to spread ransomware. Today’s MSPs should also be providing Dark Web monitoring services to provide around the clock alerting and monitoring for signs of compromised credentials within your organization.
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