SINGAPORE (Feb 11): Security experts have warned that the murky depths of cyberspace, or the so-called Dark Web, have provided a safe haven of sorts for illegal activity — from weapons trading to planning for criminal and terrorist activity, as well as cyberattacks and trading in stolen data. National security agencies trawl the Dark Web in order to disrupt criminal and terrorist networks. Now, cybersecurity start-up Cyber Intelligence House (CIH) is looking to help nip cyberattacks in the bud by doing likewise.
The Dark Web is an encrypted network that is inaccessible to traditional search engines and browsers. For a fee, CIH will archive and analyse the chatter on it, looking for indicators of an impending attack on an organisation’s cyber infrastructure. CIH will be able to churn out relevant reports as frequently as a customer would like, even in real time.
This cyber exposure assessment is something the start-up’s founder and CEO, Mikko Niemelä, has been working on for years, including for his doctoral thesis. In an interview with The Edge Singapore, Niemelä says he was inspired to look into the Dark Web after setting up a cybersecurity risk consultancy, where he looked for indications that a major cyberattack was about to take place. “We study the activity in the Dark Web because that’s where the discussions are going on,” he explains.
