By Rich Tehrani (News - Alert) & Max Schroeder

Cybersecurity anxiety continues to grow, but is this fear founded in fact, fiction, or ignorance? 

Certainly the broadcast media is exploiting cybersecurity fears to raise the ratings of some entertainment programs.  This is a standard marketing practice for fictional stories that, to some degree, mirrors real-life situations.  Programs focused on the dark web picture it as a space populated by nefarious evil individuals and groups intent on the destruction of all that is good in the world.  Fortunately, a white knight with superior computer skills usually steps in and saves the world. Unfortunately, for many viewers this presents a confusing array of authentic technical facts and frightening fiction.

The dark web is simply a term describing a subset of the public Internet that is part of the deep web not indexed by search engines. Rather than a sinister tool developed by evil creatures, it is an outgrowth of Tor (The onion router) developed by United States Naval Research Laboratory employees (the good guys) to enhance U.S. intelligence operations. By incorporating restricted access plus layered encryption (hence the onion analogy) an onion network can protect user anonymity plus secure company data and confidential information.  Therefore, legitimate businesses should not be avoiding the dark web but embracing it to enhance cybersecurity.  

The bad guys will still use the dark web for their dirty deeds, but the good guys can use the same technology to protect their environments. Information is proliferating today at an exponential rate, but modern search engines facilitate quick and easy access using tools to identify any information of value. The web was designed to be an open information space. Consequently, these same tools provide the bad guys equal accessibility to any personal or company database information that is left exposed. Secreting this information using dark web technology will make it anonymous and virtually inaccessible. The key is implementation and finding a balance between the company information you want displayed or accessible and what you want secured.

Implementation is where TMC (News - Alert) can be a big help. Collaboration is a valuable tool, and TMCnet’s Online Communities are where to find others with the same goals and interests. The Cloud Security, Cyber Security and Dark Fiber Communities should be your first stops.

Max Schroeder (News - Alert) is vice president emeritus of FaxCore Inc. (www.faxcore.com ). Rich Tehrani is the CEO and group editor-in-chief at TMC, and conference chairman of ITEXPO (News - Alert).