The Analyst’s Essential Toolkit for Safe Dark Web Intelligence
The dark web is an indispensable source of information to security analysts hoping to uncover threats before actual attacks are launched. They use dark web investigations conducted by way of open-source intelligence (OSINT) tools. But they must be careful. They cannot afford to allow threat actors to identify them and figure out what they are doing.
Conducting safe dark web intelligence is therefore critical. DarkOwl, a leading provider of OSINT tools and threat intelligence, says safety often boils down to the tools security analysts use. They need tools that not only get the job done but do so in a discrete way.
The Two Big Challenges
OSINT investigations often prove more fruitful than proprietary threat intelligence because the data gleaned is more likely up to date. This is key because security investigators want real-time data on everything from threat actor communication to compromised credentials and the services being bought and sold on dark web marketplaces.
Gathering important information comes with two big challenges:
- Collection – Analysts need to be able to find and index content that is not normally picked up by traditional web crawling. How do they find what they cannot see?
- Operational Security (OPSEC) – Analysts need to be able to conduct their investigations while protecting their own identities, locations, and corporate networks.
Successfully bridging the gap between these two challenges and ultimate success requires a specialized OSINT toolkit. An analyst will not succeed if his only tool is a standard web browser.
Web Browsers and Indexers
The dark web is built in such a way that traditional search engines cannot index its sites or data. So to find information on the dark web, security analysts need a combination of highly specialized web browsers and indexers. One of the most commonly utilized browsers is the Tor Browser.
The Tor Browser is a foundational tool no respectable security analyst would go without. The browser routes traffic through a worldwide network of relays to obscure its true origin. Four best practices define how to use it safely for dark web intelligence purposes:
- Use it on a dedicated virtual machine (VM).
- Set the security to the highest level.
- Never use the browser in full screen.
- Never utilize direct logins.
In the hands of a good investigator, the Tor Browser becomes a powerful tool for moving around the dark web without detection. And making that easier is the job of a specialized link indexer.
Just as with the traditional internet, manually searching the dark web without direction is inefficient. So OSINT tool collections often include public indexers capable of simplifying data collection.
These are onion link indexers that actively crawl and catalog dark web sites. They can also crawl specific directories like The Hidden Wiki. Onion link indexers effectively give security analysts access to their own highly specialized search engine to target the dark web.
Tied Together by Force Multipliers
Force multipliers that connect data from dark web investigations with surface web intelligence should round out every security analyst’s toolkit. Why is this necessary? To achieve successful threat actor attribution. Without attribution, it becomes exceedingly more difficult to identify unknown threat actors who can only be linked through pseudonyms and aliases.
The right OSINT tools can make the difference between successful dark web intelligence and manual browsing that produces little to no results. But analysts need a selection of tools that allow them to maintain their own anonymity. Just like threat actors don’t want to be identified and tracked, security analysts cannot afford to be discovered by those they are pursuing. Operational security is critical to dark web safety.
