Webhose takes aim at the Dark Web

Fans of the popular TV show “Mr. Robot,” which dives deep into the world of shady hackers and the Dark Web that lurks beyond its better-known counterpart, take note: An Israeli startup is serving notice that the hidden is now visible and even your bitcoins won’t shield you from the long arm of the law. Just as Google crawls the World Wide Web to index the sites we want to find, Bnei Brak-based Webhose has developed a technology that can scour the anonymous part of the Internet accessed through a special browser called Tor. Webhose can even bypass the Captcha systems meant to keep out creepy crawlers.

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Law-enforcement agencies, cybersecurity companies and large financial institutions have all expressed interest, Webhose CEO Ran Geva tells ISRAEL21c. That’s not surprising: The Dark Web has long been a sanctuary for those dealing in all things illegal: drugs, weapons, money laundering, pornography and more. It’s an area ripe for innovation and Webhose has taken the lead. “There is no Google for the Dark Web,” Geva says. “No one is doing search engine optimization there because the sites on the Dark Web don’t necessarily want to be found!” Webhose has employed what Geva calls “ethical hackers” – experts hired by companies to find vulnerabilities in their sites — to help get behind the Dark Web’s Captcha protection. Geva has a warning for criminals using cryptocurrencies: You cannot really hide. Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, is actually “less secure than a bank,” he points out. -- More....

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