The Dark Web.
The name itself is enough to send shudders through anyone who’s left their digital footprints scattered across the vastness of the internet. It is a bustling bazaar, trafficking in stolen identities, the coin of the realm of increasingly sophisticated fraud rings.
Few know the dark alleys of the Dark Web better than Igor Bulavko, who for more than a decade has worked on behalf of merchants to shut down those who seek to steal products and profits from those selling on the web. Bulavko will be the featured fraud thought leader at Signifyd’s April Payment/Fraud Meetup, “Voices from the Dark Web,” hosted at its San Jose headquarters.
For better or worse, there is hardly a more timely topic in the era of massive data breaches and consumers’ heightened awareness of how data shared with trusted sources can end up in malevolent hands.
Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, Equifax and now the Dark Web have recently become hot topics of conversation and not necessarily for the reasons they would like. But the truth is, the Dark Web and those who mine it to make an illicit living have been around for years.
Bulavko, who is the trust & safety architect at Credit Karma, will provide an overview of the cat-and-mouse game that has been underway since the commercial internet’s early days. He will talk about how the fight against cybercriminals is something like fighting a war — or at least how keeping tabs on the bad guys has much in common with military intelligence work.
His experience uniquely positions him to take fraud and payment professionals on a tour of the underworld that thrives on the Dark Web, a cyber space filled with specialists in distinct nefarious endeavors and online classes that teach the trade.
Bulavko, a PayPal veteran, doesn’t intend to simply curse the Dark Web. He will also present a series of best practices for analyzing threats and gathering intelligence about those threats.
Signifyd regularly hosts Meetups, where fraud and payment professionals gather to share tips and challenges over snacks and drinks. They have become a time and place not only for learning, but for commiserating and socializing.
And maybe, in the case of “Voices from the Dark Web,” an opportunity to offer each other comfort.
Contact Mike Cassidy at [email protected]; follow him on Twitter at @mikecassidy.
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