Kaspersky Finds 1,731 Posts Containing Company Data Appearing on the Dark Web Every Month

Illustration of dark sites (photo: Kaspersky)

JAKARTA - Kaspersky Digital Footprint Intelligence experts found nearly 40,000 dark web posts about sales, purchases and distribution of databases and internal company documents, between January 2022 and November 2023.

Of this number, Kaspersky revealed that on average, 1,731 messages appear per month.

Furthermore, another category of data available on the dark web is access to corporate infrastructure which allows cybercriminals to purchase pre-existing access to a company, for attackers to simplify their efforts.

Kaspersky saw that more than 6,000 dark web messages had advertised such offers in that period.

With this data, the cybersecurity company found that the average number of related monthly messages increased by 16 percent from 246 in 2022 to 286 in 2023.

“Not all messages on the dark web contain new and unique information. Some offers may be recurring; for example, when cybercriminals want to sell data quickly, they may post it on different underground forums to reach more potential criminal buyers,” said Anna Pavlovskaya, expert at Kaspersky Digital Footprint Intelligence.

To further improve the security of businesses around the world, Kaspersky Digital Footprint Intelligence experts discovered mentions of 700 random companies with compromised corporate data in 2022, providing insight into cyber threats originating from the dark web.

The findings revealed that 233 organizations mentioned in dark web posts were related to illegal data exchange. These resources specifically cover topics such as data breaches, theft of access to infrastructure, or compromised accounts.