What is Dark Web Monitoring?
Dark Web Monitoring is a service which regularly searches places on the dark web where information is traded and sold, looking for your information. If your information is found, you get a notification.
Dark Web Monitoring§
Identity thieves can buy or sell your personal information on hard-to-find dark web sites and forums. Dark Web Monitoring searches the dark web and notifies you should your information be found.
Norton™ 360 Deluxe and Norton™ 360 Premium plans
With these plans, when you first sign up, we will begin monitoring the dark web for your e-mail address. After you sign up, you can add more information for Dark Web Monitoring as well:
- 5 insurance ID numbers (e.g. medical, property)
- 5 email addresses
- 5 phone numbers
- 10 credit card numbers
- 10 gamer tags
Is your information on the dark web?
If you don’t know something is a problem, how can you take action?
Dark Web Monitoring enables you to gain awareness and take action if you are notified that your information has been found on the dark web.
For instance, if you learn that your email address or an account number has been found on the dark web, you can update the password you use to log into that account to a new, unique and complex password.
From Data Breach to Dark Web Sale
“But I don’t shop online”
What is the dark web?
The dark web is a small part of the web where anonymity is prized and nefarious activities can run amok. Like two people meeting in a dark alley to exchange cash for illegal goods, cybercriminals can meet anonymously on the dark web to buy and sell information illegally, too.
Surface Web, Deep Web, Dark Web
The World Wide Web can be described in different parts: the surface web, deep web and dark web:
Surface Web
The surface web is made of up webpages that are indexed by search engines like Google™ or Bing. According to one 2020 estimate, the surface web is over 5,000,000,000 web pages.1
Deep Web
The deep web is made up of webpages that are not readily accessible and have some type of wall preventing just anyone from visiting. This includes everyday things like your email account, your banking websites, your healthcare information portal and many more types of sites that require a step to authenticate you before allowing access, such as a log in or a paywall.
Commonly cited research estimates that the deep web is 400 to 550 times the size of the surface web.2
Dark Web
The dark web is a set of anonymously hosted websites within the deep web that are accessible through anonymizing software, commonly “TOR” (The Onion Router). Dark web sites include online marketplaces for buying and selling illicit goods, including personal information that can be used for identity theft.
Policing the dark web
Law enforcement has an eye on dark web marketplaces
Just like there are many online retailers on the surface web, there are a number of dark web marketplaces where buyers and sellers exchange illegal goods.
International authorities are always fighting cybercrime, and they do gain victories in shutting down large illicit websites like the ones described below. However, other dark web centers of commerce remain and new ones are created to take advantage of money that can be made on the dark web. It’s a never-ending battle.
AlphaBay and Hansa
In 2017, Europol and the U.S. Department of Justice completed what was, at the time, the largest-ever sting operation against the dark web’s black markets. These authorities seized control of two of the biggest dark web marketplaces and used them to identify thousands of dark web site administrators, sellers and buyers.
After quietly seizing control of the first site, Hansa, they then seized and shut down the largest dark web marketplace at the time, known as Alpha Bay. It’s estimated that AlphaBay generated over a billion dollars in sales of drugs, stolen data and other illegal goods over its three years in operation.
Once the authorities shut down AlphaBay, its users flocked to other dark web marketplaces, including Hansa. This enabled authorities to capture the information on thousands of site administrators, sellers and buyers, and bring to justice many of those trading in illegal goods on the dark web.
Silk Road
The Silk Road was one of the first dark web sites to become a successful anonymous marketplace for unlawful goods and services. It was founded in 2011 shut down in 2013, and its creator was ultimately sentenced to life in prison. Shortly before its shut down, the FBI reported that some of the many types of illegal items for sale on the Silk Road included:
- Forgeries: Offers to produce fake driver’s licenses, passports, Social Security cards, credit card statements and other forms of false identification
- Digital goods: Malicious software and hacked accounts at various online services
- Services: Computer hacking services, including hacking into social networking accounts of the buyer’s choosing
Dark Web Monitoring§
We search the dark web for your personal information and notify you of potential threats.
The dark web is a place where personal information can be bought and sold. Dark Web Monitoring helps shine a light on the dark web, notifying you if your information is found. We can monitor for: Driver’s license number, mother’s maiden name, physical and email addresses, phone numbers, bank account numbers, and credit card numbers.
Dark Web Monitoring§ is available in Norton 360 Deluxe and Norton 360 Premium plans.
Dark Web Monitoring§ is available in Norton 360 Deluxe and Norton 360 Premium plans.
Frequently asked questions
Since the dark web is constantly changing, no one can guarantee that they monitor 100% of the dark web and private forums. Dark Web Monitoring goes beyond easily accessible sites and marketplaces, infiltrating private forums, social web, deep web and dark web.
No one can prevent all cybercrime or identity theft.
§ Monitored information varies based on plan. Feature defaults to monitor your email address only and begins immediately. Sign in to your account to enter more information for monitoring.
1 WorldWideWebSize.com | The size of the World Wide Web (The Internet),” WorldWideWebSize.com, July 23, 2020. http://www.worldwidewebsize.com/
2 “White Paper: The Deep Web: Surfacing Hidden Value,” Bergman, Michael K., Aug. 2001. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=jep;view=text;rgn=main;idno=3336451.0007.104
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