Domains, platforms, and web abuse
Paste Sites
Paste sites are web services for publishing blocks of plain text under a short link, used legitimately for sharing code and logs, and also used to post stolen credentials, leaked documents and lists of targets.
Why they matter to defenders
Because pastes need no account and are indexed quickly, they are a common first place for stolen data to surface: credential dumps, database extracts, configuration files with keys in them, and combolists assembled from earlier breaches. A company's domain appearing in a paste is often the earliest external sign that something has leaked.
What monitoring looks like
- Search new pastes for the organisation's domains, brand names, product names and known internal hostnames.
- Review matches by hand; most are benign mentions or old data recirculated.
- For genuine hits, capture the paste immediately, since it may be removed, and note what data it contains and its likely origin.
- Route credentials to the identity team for forced resets and keys to the owners for rotation.
Limits
Paste sites are one of many places data appears, and the larger ones have become less central as leaks moved to messaging channels and dedicated forums. Paste monitoring is a cheap and useful early-warning source, not a complete view of exposure.
Related terms
Sources
- NIST SP 800-150: Guide to Cyber Threat Information Sharing
- NIST SP 800-61 Rev. 3: incident response recommendations
External guidance is general. Adapt it to your legal, regulatory and operational requirements.