Just being mentioned on the dark web makes a company far more likely to suffer a cyberattack, new research has claimed.
A report from Searchlight Cyber and the Marsh McLennan Cyber Risk Intelligence Center looked to see if the presence of data relating to an organization on the dark web increases risk of cyberattacks.
The ‘dark web’ is the part of the internet that cannot be accessed via a browser in a usual manner, and is generally used by cybercriminals to share resources, sell goods and services, and communicate.
Combined sources for more risk
Analyzing Searchlight’s dark web dataset against a sample of 9,000+ organizations with an overall breach rate of 3.7% between 2020 and 2023, the report found a significant correlation – if a dark web mention contains compromised users, there is 2.56 times higher chance of that company being struck by a cyberattack.
The mention of an organization or data related to an organization on a dark web market increases the likelihood of a cyberattack 2.41 times. Also, the mention of an organization or data related to an organization on plain-text repositories increases the chance 1.88 times.
To make matters worse, combining multiple sources provides an even stronger indication of increased risks.
“If security teams can identify their exposure on the dark web they have a huge opportunity to proactively act, adjust their defenses, and effectively stop attacks before they are launched by cybercriminals,” commented Ben Jones, Co-Founder and CEO of Searchlight Cyber.
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