Federal agencies and large financial institutions are among those turning to an Israeli-based dark web intelligence company to prevent cyberattacks.

Sixgill combs the dark net for malicious actors, covertly monitoring activity, with the aim of averting hacks and data breaches. Barry Spielman, vice president of marketing at Sixgill, spoke to RT at the European Cyber Threat Summit in Dublin, Ireland for our YouTube ‘Cyber Security Video Series.’

Spielman told RT Sixgill works with a number of government agencies, including law enforcement and intelligence bodies.

“The dark web data can serve as a feed to other types of sources they already have,” Spielman said.

Sixgill also counts large financial enterprises, including banks and insurance companies, among its clients. “We work with some of the largest banks in the United States but, not only North America, also elsewhere in the world.”

Sixgill has a unique way of looking at the dark web, according to Spielman. “We look at [it] like it’s a social network. We believe that if you follow the threat actors...then we can provide a threat intelligence picture for our customers.”

The group extracts information from dark web sites, inserts it into an external database and carries out a threat analysis. This way “no-one exposes themselves to the dark web,” Spielman explains.

Tesco vouchers trump cocaine: ‘Good customer service’ key to dark web success (VIDEO) https://t.co/wyZY688xNU — RT (@RT_com) December 10, 2017

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The technology operates an alert system, triggered when keywords or phrases are used. This then allows the team to carry out a deep dive analysis.

“The alert may serve as the trigger but ultimately you want to use our platform, which is a very deep dive forensic tool for investigators, to provide analysis of what’s going on on the dark web.”

The company’s focus is not on tracking the source of a cyber threat, but is centered on providing information to organizations so they can protect themselves.

“You are interested in knowing about the threat actor. You want to know if he is a serious threat. You want to know if he is a hacker, you want to know if he is a scammer, you don’t necessarily need to know his name so that the police will knock on the door.”

“The threat is big and getting bigger,” Spielman warns, citing data breaches at Yahoo, Home Depot, Target in the US and MediCare in Australia.

More than 7 billion records have been exposed so far this year, according to a recent analysis by Risk Based Security. Among the high profile cyberattacks of 2017 was WannaCry – a strain of ransomware which crippled computer systems around the globe.

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For the individual, education is key to protecting yourself online. “Do not press click because someone sends you something. Even a LinkedIn invitation, which seems innocuous enough, you need to ask yourself: do I really know who this person is?”

“If something doesn’t make sense..take a step back and think about it before you click.”