Monitoring dark web for organization-specific information leakage

Abstract

The use internet has become a part of every organization’s daily activity, and the information of the organization is becoming difficult to be protected from malicious actors even though the security mechanisms are put in place by the organizations. When a data breach occurs, organizations’ sensitive information is being made available out on the dark web by cybercriminals. On the other hand, the organization finds it difficult to detect the presence of their data on the dark web. The dark web provides a platform for users who seek to maintain their privacy, but it is also a platform for hosting and carrying out prohibited activities. This paper presents the development of a dark web monitoring tool to detect the presence of leaked information of the organization in the dark web and alert the information security officer of the concerned organization. The tool was developed using Python and successfully experimented with the functionality of crawling, scrapping, and alerting components of the tool. The tool can be customized and used by any organization to monitor the presence of their organization-specific data in the dark web.