Ever since we observed a few unexpected outliers in our Fortune 500 survey back in January, we have been intrigued as to whether our DARKINT score trends were correlated to stock price performance. Even we were surprised at how high the correlation appears.
DENVER (PRWEB) August 08, 2018
DarkOwl, announced the release of The DarkOwl DARKINT™ Index: 2018 Black Hat Edition, a study that examined the 285 Black Hat USA 2018 exhibitors to objectively compare the magnitude of darknet exposure among them. The extent of the presence of a company’s data on the darknet is a significant measure of that company’s cybersecurity risk. For the first time, the report also contains a preliminary analysis of whether changes in a firm’s darknet footprint was a good proxy for its stock price performance.
Using its proprietary database of darknet, deep web and high-risk surface data, collectively referred to as DARKINT, and its developed algorithms DarkOwl scored each Black Hat exhibitor based on the quantity and quality of its exposed data, with the higher DARKINT scores signifying a higher exposure profile and greater accompanying risk. The report reveals that Black Hat exhibitors scored relatively well and, in aggregate, improved over last year, with an average score of 2.1 (down from 2.6 last year).
An analysis in the report also found that there may be a correlation between DARKINT score change and stock market performance.
“Ever since we observed a few unexpected outliers in our Fortune 500 survey back in January, we have been intrigued as to whether our DARKINT score trends were correlated to stock price performance,” said Mark Turnage, CEO of DarkOwl. “Even we were surprised at how high the correlation appears.”
The analysis shows that a company having a stagnant but persistently troubling DARKINT score, or steadily increasing score, seems to be problematic for public companies. Conversely, a rapidly improving score is found to correlate well with a firm’s stock price performance. While the preliminary analysis was done using only a subset of BlackHat attendees, further research is being conducted. The Black Hat Darknet Index represents a small portion of DarkOwl’s database of darknet content, which includes information on tens of thousands of additional organizations and individuals.
Additional insights from the study include:
- AT&T leads the Index with a score of 11.8, but Hewlett Packard and Microsoft are not far behind.
- Lower quality of data available on the darknet, not the quantity, appears to be driving Black Hat exhibitor scores lower.
- Investing in cybersecurity has tangible score benefits, leading to lower Index scores.
- Black Hat exhibitors continued to be the best performing industry group tracked by DarkOwl and the first to register a year over year improvement.
To read the full study, visit https://www.darkowl.com/darknet-index-2018-blackhat
About DarkOwl
DarkOwl is based in Denver, Colorado and provides darknet threat intelligence to allow companies and organizations to understand their own digital risks. The DarkOwl database is believed to be the largest database of darknet content available to commercial users.
http://www.darkowl.com