The dark web is home to bad actors of all stripes. It is a playground for network hackers, credit card scammers, drug dealers, and crypto thieves. But the dark web is also home to bad actors working on behalf of rogue governments. As such, the same dark web threat detection businesses rely on to protect themselves and their customers plays a role in maintaining national security.
In a recent blog post published on its website, DarkOwl highlighted the importance of dark web threat detection to national security by discussing it within the framework of the recent presidential inauguration. Whether one supports the current administration or not, it cannot be denied that the inauguration and its related events could have invited a number of national security threats.
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More About Dark Web Threat Detection
This post will get to the details of the DarkOwl assessment in just a minute. But first, it is important to talk a little bit more about dark web threat detection. It is both a tool and a strategy for understanding what goes on within dark web spaces, for the purposes of understanding what threat actors are planning before they strike.
Dark web threat detection is sometimes compared to military reconnaissance or law enforcement intelligence. The idea is to find out what the enemy is doing before he is able to launch the next attack. Dark web threat detection focuses on darknet websites, forums, marketplaces, and apps. Intelligence is gathered, analyzed, and transformed into actionable insights.
When It Applies to National Security
Dark web threat detection applies to national security inasmuch as both criminals and rogue nations use darknet spaces to work out their plans. Assuming that the January 20th inauguration could have invited certain kinds of threats, DarkOwl conducted its own dark web threat intelligence in the weeks leading up to the event.
Fortunately, the chatter they observed proved rather innocuous. There were no credible threats to worry about on inauguration day. But had any credible threats emerged, DarkOwl would have been in a position to warn the appropriate authorities so that a proper response could have been mounted.
Moving beyond the inauguration, dark web threat detection is useful for discovering all sorts of threats that could impact national security. One possibility is a threat by a rogue nation to attack the U.S. power grid. Another possibility is a plan to hack sensitive government networks to steal sensitive military information. The list goes on and on.
Bad Actors Thrive on the Dark Web
Dark web threat detection is necessary because bad actors thrive on the dark web. On the one hand, most of us do not know anything about the dark web because it is an isolated part of the internet, we don’t have access to. On the other hand, the difficulty of getting onto the dark web is one of the things that makes it attractive to bad actors and rogue nations.
With the right tools and a bit of knowledge, getting onto the dark web is pretty straightforward. And once there, it quickly becomes evident that the space is dominated by pretty bad actors. The dark web is where they talk and plan. It is where they buy and sell the tools of their trades. It is the location from which many cybersecurity attacks are launched.
While it’s true that the business world has to be cognizant of dark web threats, such threats are not isolated to commerce. Governments need to be aware as well. When there are threats to national security, dark web monitoring and threat detection can help flush them out.