Dark Web/Deep Web ID Monitoring

Almost everyone has heard of the dark web, and most know it poses risks and dangers that wise internet users try to avoid. However, misconceptions exist about its identity and what it does. Not something to regard lightly, the dark web deserves dogged detection and strict avoidance. The challenge that faces many users lies in not knowing when personal and private information appears on it. Still, deep web ID monitoring provides alerts that indicate the need to act.

What does the dark web mean?

If you think an internet area with an ominous and foreboding name does not pose a danger, some facts may surprise you. The deep web, a much less dire sounding name, provides a space where illegal activities and other nefarious pursuits can occur.

It got its name for a reason, and you do not want to go there. While you may chance upon some legitimate activities, most of its contents tend to serve customers who seek access to illicit data.

As a minor component of the deep web where most internet activity occurs, it has the unique capacity to hide the information that it contains. Inaccessible by the search engines that you regularly use, it remains out of touch except by unique kinds of browsers. Considering the illegal purposes that it most often serves, you may expect the anonymity that it offers to have a strong appeal to some users. Websites that mask their IP address provide a level of privacy and anonymity unavailable in any other place on the deep web.

What can you find on the dark web?

Almost every kind of illicit and illegal information you cannot find on legitimate websites may show up on sites that pander to prurient or malevolent interests. The type of personal and private information that you hope never falls into the dark space on the deep web includes your credit card numbers, subscription accounts, medical records, Social Security numbers, and information about your passport if you have one. However, the intrusiveness reaches much further than that. The personal information you supply when you need a unique id, such as your mother’s maiden name, can exist on the deep web.

Individuals

Your sensitive data provides a source of illegal income for hackers who traffic in buying and selling it, putting everything in your computer at risk. Even more significantly, the anonymous transactions involving your information allow identity thieves to become you. It gives them a license to steal with impunity as the sensitive data enables them to apply for loans that lenders expect you to repay. Finding and buying your government ID can allow a thief to request a tax refund in your name and receive a check from the IRS. Identity theft affects millions of Americans who may find the damage too late to do anything about it. Aside from the sensitive and private information that exists there, hardcore child pornography, human traffic, violent videos, and sites that sell drugs and firearms also appear.

Businesses

Companies experience exposure to risk when criminals buy hacking tools and malware. Like private citizens who do not know of the invasion into personal data, businesses have no way of knowing about data theft either. Hackers can use the purloined tools to steal company files and disrupt the normal flow of business. However, much worse outcomes can occur. When the malware includes ransomware, the threat can harshly damage a company until the thieves receive whatever price they set.

Reports of malicious breaches that often appear can show that they do not target businesses by size but by the ease of access. With the care that you take to prevent prying eyes from seeing your intellectual property, you can succeed in denying access to the people you know. The greater risk, however, exists with those you do not know. Illicit activities on sites can allow malicious operators to damage your brand and cause loss of market share while you do not even know about it.

How does monitoring work?

A monitoring service can accomplish the task of detecting threats on the web with technology and expertise that private individuals and businesses cannot match. As an effective form of surveillance, it uses software to crawl the internet and detect your website’s availability. As it checks on connectivity, it can alert you to its operational status and ensure that the server and the site perform properly. It may find performance problems that you can fix before they create downtime. Transaction monitoring can produce information about visitor activity and other insights that help businesses ensure website availability and consistent performance. Monitoring provides information about unavailable or slow sites that can send customers elsewhere, causing the loss of a potentially competitive edge. It may produce a notification that illicit sites offer stolen information for sale in the cyber market that appeals to user interests’ darker side.

What advantages does monitoring provide?

Awareness of essential facts about your website informs you of your customers’ view of it. An inaccessible site produces an effect similar to a “closed” sign on a brick-and-mortar store. Downtime almost always means a loss of business, and you may not know about it unless you spend much time on your site. A sudden increase in traffic may overburden your site when you expect it to handle the requests for the sale you offer.

Maintenance requires downtime, but it needs to occur when traffic to your site reaches its lowest user activity level. Monitoring can let you choose the right time. An alert to a hacker attack gives you a chance to respond to malicious codes that can bring your site to a complete stop. The value of the heads-up alerts that monitoring provides may vary according to the importance that you place on your proprietary information.

What kinds of monitoring tools exist?

Two tools offer different types of monitoring capability. One can run locally on a server in your home or office, and it may provide access to some facts that help you keep your site running properly. A more commonly used tool offers access from the cloud and tests much more than your web server. With indicators for uptime, downtime, an array of functionality measures, and a highly efficient alerting system, it can provide the notifications that ensure the productive performance of your presence on the web.

Recommendations

Network administrators cannot watch for everything, and you probably do not want them to spend their valuable time doing so. However, you can protect yourself with deep web ID monitoring. Potential risk exposes you to damage to your brand and loss of market share, but you can avoid them with preventive measures.