What Exactly is the Dark Web?

This report provides an overview of the dark web—how it operates, how it differs from the surface and deep web, and the criminal marketplaces and forums that facilitate credential dumps, payment card fraud, malware sales, and attack reconnaissance. It recommends continuous dark-web monitoring and third-party risk management, describes how threat intelligence can detect leaked credentials and vendor compromise, and promotes managed services and integration of dark-web findings into remediation workflows and security ratings.