One of the most dangerous aspects of the dark web is that it provides like-minded threat actors a haven to gather, discuss, develop, and sell access to technology companies, which are often the first link in a supply chain attack. Alternatively, it's an environment where those looking to enter the world of cybercrime and initiate a third-party attack can buy the tools necessary to begin their operation.
Trustwave SpiderLabs report Technology Industry Deep Dive: Dark Web-Powered Supply Chain Attacks, a supplementary document to its just released 2025 Trustwave Risk Radar Report for the Technology Sector, delves into the dark web to expose what is taking place.
What the Dark Web Delivers
The report noted the dark web has evolved into a key facilitator of supply chain attacks targeting the technology sector as cybercriminals are no longer isolated actors but part of organized ecosystems where access credentials, zero-day exploits, and malicious code updates are traded like Wall Street commodities. Within underground forums and encrypted channels, threat actors openly discuss, develop, and sell access to technology companies, offering everything from compromised developer accounts to malicious software.
This ecosystem is self-replicating. Every successful supply chain attack generates additional information that, in turn, is made available on the dark web to help with the next group of supply chain attacks. As a supply chain's layers are increasingly infiltrated, technology firms find it harder to defend because the precise location of the weak link is unknown, the report said.
To help technology firms understand what they face and how to react, Deep Dive: Dark Web-Powered Supply Chain Attacks offers insight into some of the biggest supply chain attacks that have recently taken place, such as those targeting Oracle and Coinbase, and how the victims responded.
And, as always, the report includes a detailed list of recommendations organizations should adopt to help secure themselves from a third-party attack.
To read all the details along with a more comprehensive understanding of the overall security situation facing the technology sector, please also read:
