Is Your Business in Danger From Bad Actors Dropping 22 Million Records on the Dark Web in 2020?
Dark Web risk is a constantly growing threat for businesses, and that danger increases every year as more treasure troves of information that bad actors can use to facilitate cyberattacks land on the Dark Web. Experts estimate that hackers dropped over 22 million records on the Dark Web in 2020. Is that information a danger to your business?
More Information = More Danger
The Dark Web already contained millions of pieces of information that hackers could use to fuel cyberattacks – an estimated 60% of the information that was on the pre-pandemic Dark Web could harm businesses. That percentage is climbing fast, and will continue to grow as the fallout from a record number of data breaches in 2020 is calculated. Plus, Dark Web activity has climbed by more than 300% in the last three years, making both the buying and selling markets bigger.
Data breaches, especially those involving ransomware, climbed steadily throughout the chaotic landscape of 2020. Two in five Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) were victimized by ransomware, with an estimated 85% of firms experiencing a cyberattack in 2020. That means that cybercriminals were able to rapidly harvest fresh data to sell or dump on the Dark Web.
How Stolen Data is a Threat to Your Business
You may not think that your business could be in danger of a cyberattack from information that was collected from other companies or non-business sources, but you’d be wrong. Cybercriminals can use data from unexpected sources to harm your business through many avenues including:
- A professional organization’s membership records to craft spear phishing attacks against executives
- A list of stolen passwords from a popular service provider to power credential stuffing
- A file full of company email addresses for business email compromise (BEC) scams
- A government agency’s licensing records to launch phishing attacks
- A client list from a business service provider to enable credential theft from that company’s clients
You need to be alert to the possibility of increased cyberattack danger that is created by a huge influx of new data like 22 million records on the Dark Web added in 2020. We can help.
Why Dark Web Monitoring is a Smart Move for Every Business
Keeping an eye on Dark Web activity that involves your business is a smart way to prevent unpleasant surprises. Why? Because huge caches of passwords are regularly snatched by bad actors as part of their data theft schemes, making credential compromise related to Dark Web data one of the major threats to your business. In a challenging economy, even cybercriminals have to work a little harder, and that’s reflected in the booming business in data on the Dark Web.
Your employees are almost certainly recycling a few favorite passwords for all of the applications that they use between work and home. Not only do 48% of workers use the same passwords in both their personal and work accounts, but the average person also recycles a favorite password 14 times. This increases the danger to businesses from stolen records because chances are that at least one of your employees is reusing a password that they’ve used somewhere else in the past.
Don’t Get Caught Flatfooted by Dark Web Data
Your company’s credentials may already be on the Dark Web, endangering your business. With an influx of at least 22 million records on the Dark Web in 2020, that possibility becomes even more likely – and if they’re not already there, they could be arriving soon as cybercrime in 2021 isn’t slowing down. Cybercriminals aren’t wasting time capitalizing on the advantages that weak remote workforce cybersecurity creates for them.
Protect your business credentials with our Dark Web monitoring to gain peace of mind against Dark Web danger like password lists bought in data markets or harvested from data dumps. Optistar will monitor the Dark Web to watch for your company’s credentials to make an unexpected appearance. Contact our Cyber Security experts for more information on our business security solutions to reduce the growing cyber risks to your company.
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