An Internet Organized Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA) report published today analyzes 8's most widespread cyber crime trends, for which researchers have seen an increase in incidents since the beginning of the year.
Europol's report shows an upward trend in the volume, scope and material of cybercrime, and complements the UK authorities' announcements earlier this year that internet crime has overtaken traditional crime, for the first time in their country's history.
1: Crime-as-a-Service
Europol reports that digital underground σκηνή μετατοπίζεται προς ένα επιχειρηματικό μοντέλο Εγκλήματος-σαν υπηρεσία ή Crime-as-a-Service, με διάφορα άτομα και ομάδες που ειδικεύονται σε συγκεκριμένα εγκλήματα και παρέχουν υπηρεσίες τεχνικής υποστήριξης και τα απαιτούμενα tools, of course with the corresponding price.
Thus illegal sales of weapons, hacks on-demand, DDoS rental services and many different exploit kits have been observed.
2: Ransomware
If you read iguru.gr you will have come across very often reports on issues related to ransomware. In addition to ransomware, Europol also reports that banking trojans have been very popular this year.
3: Use Crime Data
Recent hacks, violations and data leaks have filled the internet with personal data used by fraudsters to make other violations, frauds and even blackmail.
4: Payment Scams
Europol reports that it had a very large number of fraud complaints, which were organized by organized crime groups with hacking on ATMs, EMVs and NFC cards.
5: Sexual abuse of children
The large number of online tools and services that provide sophisticated and unbreakable end-to-end encryption, along with anonymous payments through cryptocurrencies, has led to "an escalation in the live streaming of child abuse."
6: Metamovement on the Darknet
More and more crime activities move to darknet (or darkweb), a part of the Internet for which you need special software such as Tor and I2P to access. Of course, criminals exploit the anonymity of the network.
7: Social engineering
Europol reports that spear-phishing episodes of high-value targets increased in 2016, and highlights the increase in scams targeting CEOs.
8: Digital crypt-coins
Η Εuropol αναφέρει ότι το Bitcoin έχει γίνει το de-facto currency for extortion payments. This is also why the agency created a Bitcoin Money Laundering Department (Bitcoin Money Laundering Division) earlier this month.
For more information You can see the Europol IOCTA rating from the following link:
