Episode #
28
LinkedIn's Evan Blicker on Understanding and Developing Your Approach to the Dark Web
Show Notes
In this week's episode of the Future of Cyber Risk podcast, David speaks to Evan Blicker, Sr. Cyber Threat Investigator - Dark Web Lead at LinkedIn. They discuss what the dark web is, what you can find there, and the biggest misconceptions about the dark web — like why it should be viewed more as a community of people rather than a dangerous arena. They also talk about how to get started with dark web investigations securely, why the biggest challenge is communicating about dark web threats, and what the future of the dark web will look like.
Topics discussed:
A day-in-the-life of a cyber threat investigator which includes building out the dark web vision for LinkedIn, that involves knowing what's out there and finding leads.
The biggest misconceptions about the dark web, what you typically find there, and why it should be viewed more as a community of individuals who want to interact through private means.
The skills security practitioners will need in order to be successful with dark web investigations.
Why being able to communicate the threat found on the dark web is the biggest challenge for security practitioners.
What the future of the dark web will look like and why there's going to be a "Great Migration" off of Tor.
Advice for where to begin with dark web investigations, including how to access the dark web securely.
Quotes from Episode
#1.)
"The dark web should be looked at as a community. It's a community of people from all different backgrounds, from security practitioners that work at Fortune 100 companies trying to secure their company, to all the way down to the threat actor who's hoping to become the next master hacker, to somebody who's just curious and trying to find out. So if you look at it as a community, you can kind of get a pulse of what the community is thinking and what the community is wanting to do." (10:26-10:51)
#2.)
"Investigation skill is one that I find to be very valuable. If you have something that is a persistent threat or a potential future persistent threat, having the ability to fully research something out, to come up with recommendations, to come up with actionable intelligence allows you to put the force field up before it ever becomes a problem." (17:53; from video 2)