Dark web
Also known as: darknet, dark net
The dark web is a part of the internet made up of hidden websites that can only be reached using special software, most commonly the Tor browser, which hides users' and sites' locations.
It hosts legitimate services, such as anonymous news access and whistleblower platforms, alongside criminal marketplaces selling drugs, stolen data, and hacking tools. While the dark web is often portrayed as mysterious, most stolen data trading now also happens on messaging apps and ordinary forums.
Dark web, explained at three levels
At home
Think of the internet as a city. The ordinary web is the main streets anyone can find with a map like Google. The dark web is a set of unmarked back-alley shops you can only reach with special software, usually the Tor Browser, which bounces your connection through several volunteer computers so neither you nor the shop can easily be traced. That privacy attracts both dissidents and criminals.
At work
The dark web is a collection of hidden websites reachable only through special software such as Tor, which conceals who runs them and who visits. Criminals use it to sell stolen data, company logins, and hacking tools. Businesses care because their customer data or staff passwords may turn up there after a breach, and monitoring services can alert them so they can reset accounts quickly.
At home
Dark web sites run on the Tor network. When you use the Tor Browser, your connection bounces through three volunteer computers, called relays, and each one only knows the one before and after it, so no single relay can see both who you are and where you are going. Sites ending in '.onion' take this further by hiding the server's location too. That makes the dark web useful for privacy and for crime alike.
At work
Onion services use addresses derived from their own cryptographic keys, so the address itself proves you reached the right server, without DNS or certificates. Criminal marketplaces, forums and ransomware leak sites rely on this to resist takedowns, though law enforcement still seizes them regularly through operational mistakes. Dark web monitoring services crawl these sites and Telegram channels for your domains, credentials and data, alerting when stolen logins or files appear.
At home
Visiting the dark web is not illegal in Canada, and journalists, activists and privacy-minded people use Tor for legitimate reasons. Buying illegal goods there is a crime, though, and scams are everywhere, since buyers have little recourse when sellers vanish. Clicking around also exposes you to malicious downloads and disturbing content. In my view, curiosity is not worth the risk for most people, even if the technology itself is impressive.
At work
Treat monitoring results as triggers: reset exposed passwords, revoke sessions, investigate the source of leaked data and notify affected parties where required. Much posted data is recycled from older breaches or exaggerated by sellers trying to build reputation, so verify before declaring a breach. Never buy back data or engage with criminals directly; leave that to law enforcement and specialists. Some organizations run their own onion services to offer censorship-resistant access.
Real-world examples
At home
Lena got an alert from her password manager saying her email and an old password appeared in a dark web data dump. She changed that password on every site where she'd used it.
At work
Thomas runs security at a Canadian software company. A dark web monitoring alert showed a staff member's VPN login for sale, so his team reset it and found the employee's home PC had an infostealer.
How it compares
| feature | Dark web | Deep web |
|---|---|---|
| Access | Special software like Tor | Normal browser, but behind logins |
| Indexed by search engines | No | No |
| Examples | Onion sites, hidden markets | Online banking, email inboxes |
| Size | Small | Most of the web |
The deep web is everything behind a login. The dark web is deliberately hidden.
For analysts
Dark web monitoring is only useful if alerts lead to action. I'd define in advance who resets what, and how fast, when company credentials show up.
History & origin
Onion routing was developed by researchers at the US Naval Research Laboratory in the mid-1990s to protect government communications, and the Tor software was released publicly in 2002, later managed by the non-profit Tor Project. Hidden services, now called onion services, let websites hide their location. The Silk Road marketplace launched in 2011 and was shut down by the FBI in 2013. In 2017, police took down AlphaBay, then the largest dark web market; its founder, Alexandre Cazes of Trois-Rivières, Quebec, was arrested in Thailand and died in custody. News organizations such as the BBC and The New York Times later launched onion sites to reach readers under censorship. In my view, the dark web is a tool like any other, valuable for dissidents and dangerous in the wrong hands.