The Deep Web & The Dark Web affecting Healthcare
The surface web that we all utilize on a daily basis provides us with more information and data than we know how to manage. It uses every day search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Reddit and other common search engines. To many web users surprise, the surface web only provides 4% of the content that is on the entire web. The other 96% is housed in the deep web and the dark web and cannot be accessed by the typical search engines listed above. The deep web and the dark web should be of concern to the healthcare community as they are a frequent target due to the large number of users, employees, and patients that pass through their systems.
While both webs have frequent hackers access the information, the deep web and the dark web are two separate things. The deep web contains things like patient data and information, payment/credit card information, medical databases and records, legal documents, government reports and plenty more. The dark web is more malicious and contains things like illegal drug activity, human, weapon and drug trafficking, terrorism influence, political protest and more. Both webs contain countless hackers that are trying to acquire valuable assets like healthcare data and/or payment information. This type of information is offered up like an auction and is sold off to the highest bidder. From there, hackers frequently use this information to do illegal acts such as ransomware or as detailed as purchasing a deceased persons personal information to ultimately steal their identity with the hope that no one will notice.