Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Trustwave SpiderLabs’ just released Deep Dive: How Threat Actors Turn Vulnerabilities into Big Business offers an amazing look at how threat actors use information from hospitality victims to conduct a myriad of fraudulent activities.

Top tips is a weekly column where we highlight what’s trending in the tech world and list ways to explore these trends. This week, we focus on how businesses can turn dark web alerts into their first line of defense against emerging cyberthreats. After hearing about a burglary in your neighborhood, you might install a security camera. You double-check your house locks when you hear about thefts nearby.

The summer travel season is almost here, and travelers worldwide are in the process of booking their holidays, thus placing some of their most vital personal and financial information into the hands of the hospitality industry. A fact not lost to threat actors who thrive on gaining access and stealing this data.

Effective ‘dark web monitoring’ is essential for modern businesses. This intelligence practice goes beyond traditional dark web forums, actively scanning the deep web, open web, and social media platforms. It uncovers threats and risks wherever cyber criminals operate – from hidden marketplaces to public social channels – providing crucial visibility into your external threat landscape.

The internet can be divided into three primary layers, each with its specific traits and ranges of accessibility as Surface, Deep and Dark web.Each layer serves a purpose in the structure of the internet; the former is easily accessible to users; the intermediate phase houses a large amount of Information and the latter is a space for both illegal and legitimate anonymous activities. When Privacy Information is leaked such as medical records, it completely ruins someone's reputation and personal life.

In the current digital world, our financial and personal data is more susceptible than ever. Cybercriminals are always searching for methods to use stolen data, and the dark web is one of the riskiest locations they visit. The dark web is a covert area of the internet where illegal operations, such the purchase and sale of credentials and private data that have been stolen, occur.

Finding the exact price of any product is now easier than ever. A quick check with your favorite online retailer will show that a GE Profile Dryer goes for $989, a 10-pack of Play-Doh can be had for $7.99, and a loaf of Pepperidge Farm Farmhouse Hearty White Sliced Bread is $3.59. Unfortunately, a glance at certain less legitimate online sites on the Dark Web is just as easy.

Your customers’ stolen data could be for sale right now – and you might not even know it. The dark web is a thriving, shadowy marketplace where fraudsters trade credit card numbers, account details, session cookies, and even entire identities. On average, there were more than 2.5 million daily visitors to the dark web in 2023, showcasing the scale of this underground economy.

In recent events, Foresiet researchers identified a significant data leak involving Nokia's internal resources posted on a dark web marketplace. This leak, allegedly stemming from a third-party contractor working closely with Nokia on internal tool development, brings to light both sensitive code repositories and critical access credentials.

The typical Security Operations Center (SOC) faces a wide variety of responsibilities. In addition to monitoring internal systems for signs of threats and breaches, modern SOCs are tasked with managing external risks through practices such as: Each of these practices addresses different types of risks, and it would be wrong to say that any one practice is fundamentally more important than the others.