More than a thousand CISOs from significant companies in the US and UK participated in a recent poll, which found that 93 percent of them are concerned about risks from the darknet and 72 percent think that knowing about cybercriminals is essential to protecting their company.
The Searchlight Cyber research examines how CISOs are using information obtained from the dark web to strengthen their security posture.
It reveals that 79 percent are at the moment collecting information from the dark web. According to the report, there is still work to be done in utilizing dark web data to solve some of the biggest cybersecurity problems, even among those who are already collecting it. For instance, only 32% of CISOs who are gathering dark web data are utilizing it to keep an eye out for attacks on their supply chain, despite the fact that 71% of CISOs say they want to know whether their suppliers are being attacked on the dark web.
Businesses in the US are ahead because more of their businesses (80% vs. 72% in the UK) are gathering threat intelligence. Also, US businesses are more prone to employ dark web data sources (84 percent vs 75 percent in the UK). The fact that 85% of US CISOs and just 70% of CISOs in the UK feel that they have a thorough understanding of their opponents’ profiles is not unexpected.
According to our poll, the US has adopted dark web intelligence a little more quickly than the UK, according to Ben Jones, CEO and co-founder of Searchlight Cyber. “The correlation between obtaining more threat intelligence and data from the darknet and improving security posture is noteworthy. The findings make it abundantly clear to UK businesses that haven’t yet realized the potential of dark web intelligence that doing so will improve their awareness of their competitors and boost their likelihood of recognizing an assault.”
According to research, the financial sector is the one that has adopted dark web intelligence the fastest, with 85% of businesses doing so. Manufacturing (83%) and the IT and telecoms (80%) and professional services (80%) sectors are next (80 percent).
However, healthcare lags behind other sectors, with only 57% of firms incorporating dark web intelligence into their security plan. With 66 percent of CISOs reporting that they obtain data from the dark web, the oil and gas business lags behind other “high risk” industries.