The dark web is home to the fraud economy and criminal communities. It's the new epicentre of organisational risk -- and a nightmare for finance departments around the world.
To understand how finance can save itself from the perils of the dark web, it's important to first understand what it is and how it works.
We spoke to Emily Wilson, vice president of research for Terbium Labs, to find out more about the dark web. ’At a fundamental level, the dark web is just another part of the internet’, she explains. ’But the technology that supports and underpins the dark web allows for increased anonymity, user obfuscation, and all the things that are very good for privacy and security, which also means that they're very good for criminals.’
Search engines can't see or index the dark web, which requires an anonymising browser called Tor to be accessed. A King's College London study classified the contents of more than 2,500 live dark web sites over a five-week period and found that 57% host illicit material.
Things have gotten worse. ’The number of dark web listings that could harm an enterprise has risen by 20% since 2016', writes Darren Guccione, CEO and co-founder of Keeper Security, Inc. ’Of all listings, excluding those selling drugs, 60% could potentially harm enterprises'.
