Browsing and our day-to-day life: Clean, Deep and Dark Web

Browsing and our day-to-day life: Clean, Deep and Dark Web

We have seen and noticed for long regarding internet the endless virtual world. We have seen food, groceries, etc. being delivered at our doorstep. Information which was found only in books are now being accessed in our fingertips.

For most of us we use one of the search engines to search for any information in any of the leading search engines. However, we do not know what is in existence beyond our day to day browsing.

John Prakash Jha (CEO and founder of Netsach), said that while the internet appears to be a flat ecosystem on its surface, there are actually numerous different layers at play. In reality, there are three major areas of the Internet to differentiate between:

1.     Clear web

2.     Deep Web

3.     Dark Web

The clear web, also known as the surface, normal or open web, is the internet that you usually use on a day-to-day basis. These are websites that have been made available to the general public and are indexed by search engines. You can also access them using regular browsers, for example, Chrome.

In contrast to the open web, the deep web is not available to the general public, nor is it indexed by search engines. However, unlike the dark web, deep web pages exist to keep various things operational. You can access the deep web using standard browsers. Examples of entities that use the deep web include banks, hotels, and libraries.

Thirdly, you have the dark web. It is inaccessible via regular browsers, and it is not available on sites that are indexed by search engines. To access the dark web, you will require software that is compatible with the Tor network.

The dark web uses complex systems to turn user IP addresses anonymous. That makes it extremely difficult for your online activity to be tracked or traced back to a particular address.

The deep Web is qualitatively different from the surface Web. Deep Web sources store their content in searchable databases that only produce results dynamically in response to a direct request. But a direct query is a "one at a time" laborious way to search.

Tor stands for The Onion Router, and millions of people use it each day to access the dark web. It works by wrapping itself around your message, thus forming layers of encryption to achieve anonymity. Subsequently, searches and messages don't directly arrive at the destination you intended, keeping your identity anonymous.

Five ways to protect yourself using dark web

1.     Use a VPN

2.     Beware of malware

3.     Use a dedicated browser

4.     Stay Anonymous

5.     Familiarise yourself with the governing law

Few cyber security facts being picked up from various sources:

·       95% of cybersecurity breaches are caused by human error.

·       The worldwide information security market is forecast to reach $170.4 billion in 2022.

·       88% of organizations worldwide experienced spear phishing attempts in 2019.

·       68% of business leaders feel their cybersecurity risks are increasing.

·       On average, only 5% of companies’ folders are properly protected.

·       Data breaches exposed 36 billion records in the first half of 2020.

·       86% of breaches were financially motivated and 10% were motivated by espionage.

·       45% of breaches featured hacking, 17% involved malware and 22% involved phishing.

·       Between January 1, 2005, and May 31, 2020, there have been 11,762 recorded breaches.

·       The top malicious email attachment types are .doc and .dot which make up 37%, the next highest is .exe at 19.5%.

·       An estimated 300 billion passwords are used by humans and machines worldwide.