Happy Cybersecurity Awareness Month! The dark web can seem like a haunted house with mysteries in each corner. However, addressing facts and statistics about it can help you and your cybersecurity team prevent attacks.
We’ve collected some spooky dark web statistics and facts to better inform your cybersecurity practices.
1. The Flare database has monitored a growing number of unique forum profiles over the past few years. In 2022 there were about 2,850,000 profiles, in 2021 there were 2,000,000, and in 2020 there were 895,000.
The number of threat actors on the dark web are increasing, and this is reflected in the amount of unique forum profiles found in Flare’s database.
2. We have archived more than 2,800,000 unique forum profiles, more than 1,600,000 forum discussion topics, and nearly 1,900,000 DarkNet market listings.
In our Flare database, we’ve archived millions of data points from the dark web. Platform users can safely and easily navigate through the dark web.
3. The average insurance payment for ransomware was $200,000.
Because of the overall rise in ransomware, the average payment is decreasing for cyber attacks.
4. About 88% of data breach incidents are caused by employees’ mistakes.
This is an opportunity for organizational structural changes to minimize human error, rather than blaming individual employees.
For example, with the zero-trust model, companies give only certain employees access to specific data to reduce the potential for human error and its negative consequences.
5. There is an average number of 634 infected devices per country on the Russian Market and 724 infected devices per country on the Genesis Market.
Threat actors sell infected devices on autoshops like the Russian Market on the dark web and Genesis Market on the clear web.
Flare calculated the average and median numbers of infected devices per country by using 30,000 bot samples from the Genesis Market, 180,000 stealer log samples from the Russian Market, and analyzed the number of infected devices per 6,000,000 population and 1,000,000 population, for Genesis and Russian Markets, respectively.
Want to learn more about the stealer malware ecosystem? Read our report, The Stealer Malware Ecosystem: A Detailed Analysis of How Infected Devices are Sold and Exploited on the Dark & Clear Web.
6. On a given day, there are 3,122 Canadian bots for sale.
These bots are for sale on the Genesis Market.
7. Of these 3,122 bots for sale, there are about 48 bots sold per day.
Over the period of a week, the average number of bots that threat actors sold was about 48. On one day it was as high as 104 bots. Canadian bots provide credentials for close to 18,000 websites.
8. About 30% of phishing emails are opened by employees, with 12% of these targeted users clicking on the malicious link or attachment.
Spear phishing continues to become more elaborate and ensnare victims. Unfortunately, as they seem convincing, a percentage of their targets do click the attached link or file, which causes them to download malware onto their computer.
Want to learn more about phishing and leaked credentials? Read our report, Clear Insights from a Deep Analysis of Dark Web Leaked Credentials.
Don’t let these dark web statistics and facts terrify you, and instead add this knowledge to your toolkit for protecting your organization and employees.
How Flare Helps
Flare’s digital footprint monitoring platform scans the dark web, clear web, and instant messaging platforms like Telegram.
Book a demo to see how to safely explore the dark web and potential threats to your organization.
