Using the Internet To Prevent Cyber Crime

Despite organizations all around the world setting aside considerable budgets and manpower to beef up cyber protection, cybercrime is still thriving. One would think that for organizations like banks and government institutions, where cyber protection is a priority, there would hardly be any cases of successful cyber attacks. Surprisingly, even the big players do get hit. Perhaps it’s because security policies can be difficult to implement in huge organizations and a small oversight could be all an attacker needs. Or maybe all the security updates are difficult to keep up with at scale. In any case, cybercriminals always seem to be one step ahead.

Or maybe the scales are always tilted in their favor. For example, despite extensive sensitization on basic cyber safety and best practices, tricks like social engineering and phishing somehow still work. A meticulously-crafted deception that gets an employee to give up their login details might be all an attacker needs.

However, with a cyber crime ai solution, it just might be possible to tip the scales back in our favor, or at least even them. Cobwebs provides a range of web intelligence (WEBINT) solutions, including location-based intelligence that can help uncover hard-to-find relationships in data to AI-powered web investigation that can provide real-time and actionable alerts on cyber threats.

With such AI-based WEBINT solutions, organizations can be a step ahead of threat actors. They are better equipped to prevent cyber crime. And if an attack does happen, the cyber crime investigation process becomes less time-consuming and yields results that make prosecution easier. The damage of an attack can even be mitigated.

Here’s a look at how a cyber crime ai solution can be game-changing for your organization’s cyber crime prevention plan.

Prevention

Data – and the information derived from it – is crucial in cyber protection. All it takes to successfully prevent cyber crime is the right information. Fortunately, this information can be found on the internet. For example, learning that a threat actor has obtained personally identifiable information (PII) about an organization’s employee over the dark web could be instrumental in preventing an attack.

However, the internet is vast and layered, with massive amounts of data. Analyzing this data and obtaining the required insights is a tough job, one that can’t be done manually.

With Cobwebs’ AI-powered web investigation platform, organizations can effectively leverage the power of the internet to prevent cyber crime. This platform monitors data from multiple digital channels across all levels of the internet, from the surface web to the dark web.

Additionally, security analysts could benefit immensely from Cobwebs’ analyst assistant. This is a browser extension that not only provides the analysts with enhanced and quicker analytics but also reduces the digital footprint they leave on the web. Through the assistant, they could set relevant search parameters and get real-time alerts that help prevent cyber criminal attacks.

Detection 

Sometimes organizations don’t realize that their systems have been breached until a catastrophic event like the massive release of the PII of customers or employees. Early detection of a breach helps mitigate the damage and implement measures to contain the breach where possible.

Cobwebs’ cyber crime ai solution helps reduce the time taken before a breach is discovered. For example, when employee data is accessed by attackers, they might try to sell it on the dark web. Cobwebs’ web investigation platform can detect this by automation and generate an alert. The organization would be empowered to contain the situation, for example by alerting the parties concerned and making the stolen information useless.

Investigation 

After a breach has been detected, the cyber crime investigation process can take a long time. In many cases, the attackers manage to go unpunished. One of the reasons why cyber crimes go unresolved is the ability of attackers to remain anonymous. Cobwebs’ range of solutions enables the analysis of collated data from multiple sources on the internet, increasing the chances of de-anonymizing threat actors. For example, location-based intelligence could help narrow down their location and give pointers to their real-life identities.

Additionally, with the internet’s data at an organization’s disposal, investigators are better placed to find evidence that would help in prosecution. For example, the record of a threat actor’s communication, along with any transactions they might have made over the internet, could prove useful.

Conclusion 

Cobwebs’ web intelligence solutions use artificial intelligence to generate actionable insights using data from all levels of the internet including the deep, dark and surface web. This helps in all steps of the fight against cybercrime, from the prevention and detection of attacks to more effective investigation, which ensures that the perpetrators pay for their crimes and acts as a deterrent.

These solutions have a myriad of security applications across many sectors. For example, in the finance sector, having access to data from across the internet can be instrumental in making successful Know-Your-Customer queries to help fight money laundering.

In law enforcement, such robust solutions could help immensely in criminal investigations, as well as cyber threat monitoring.

Increasingly, cybercriminals are dependent on the internet to collaborate and get the resources necessary to carry out successful attacks. The internet has become their greatest tool. Thanks to the solutions offered by Cobwebs, the internet can be turned into the greatest defense against cyber attacks, which, as we’ve seen above, can be highly effective.