The dark web is becoming a haven for everything that can be considered illegal – from threat actors targeting nations to criminals building hacks and looking to swap stolen credit cards or leaked sensitive information. The dark web is very much different from the surface web as it is a landscape that is inhabited by criminals, human traffickers, assassins-for-hire, extremists, pedophiles, and others involved in illegal means. But it is also the grounds for a law enforcement analyst or digital forensic investigator to continually monitor, identify and extract dark web threat intelligence. Utilizing a host of tools, software, and AI innovations, they can map out and monitor a threat actor. Threat intelligence on the dark web, as in real life, can come in many forms and from many unpredictable places and people. Analysts need to effectively be ahead of the curve rather than playing catch up in an ongoing investigation to ensure a threat actor does not fulfill what they are determined to do. But dark web forums, boltholes, and blogs can often be encoded, enabling a threat actor to feel safe in the knowledge that if they have to discuss information, security weaknesses, corporate vulnerabilities, or methods with others, then they can do so. However, analysts can also unlock these channels, and with the use of tools to extract only targeted information from the mass of data, they can quickly assimilate a target’s face, location, connections with others, their circle, their ideologies, their potential threat status, and intentions. Dark web threat intelligence can be collected quickly and seamlessly to protect organizations from potential attacks, assessing data types that have been compromised. The software that continues to evolve today can automatically extract targeted critical insights from big data with advanced and powerful AI machine learning algorithms. Designed to meticulously race through and scan endless digital channels of the web, these solutions analyze huge sums of data to help protect precious assets. Automated tools provide real-time alerts to create clarity of the threats in an organization’s feed and streamline operations in real-time. The best in advanced artificial technology can recognize any threat on the dark web by identifying patterns in data and social groups, highlighting potential threats. Solutions can define personalized alerts to be triggered when threat actors are active on different web sources, while real-time extraction from various web sources allows for accuracy and prevention of upcoming threats. These tools can also fashion upgrades in emerging security reviews to ensure that a corporate
organization, for example, can assess, block, and neutralize any threats to their assets or people before they even arise in reality. Intelligent platforms deployed by analysts will continuously monitor and index the dark web allowing structured monitoring of people and keywords for dark web forums and marketplaces. They can also gain accurate information about threat actors in a specific geofence in real-time, such as in a demonstration. Creative means for gathering intelligence and critical insights are growing and evolving daily. Law enforcement can now deploy these new dynamics and empower their team to attain deep knowledge and insight, and effect speedy decision-making.