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Lack of Collaboration Could be Putting Global Response to Cybercrime at Risk

  • Without an agile, holistic approach to cybercrime prevention, hackers will continue to run rampant in the digital ecosystem
  • A coordinated global response is vital to the reduction and prevention of cybercrime

There’s been a lot of geopolitical tension in the air in 2018, which could escalate further in the next 12 months. With the outcome of Brexit still unclear and potentially heading towards no-deal, the US turning to isolationism through their “America first” mindset, and Russia’s attempts to influence global politics and elections, it’s easy to see how international relations could drift apart.

Tensions putting global cybercrime response at risk

But what does this all mean for cybersecurity? For one, Brexit could impact the relationship between the UK and Europol, resulting in the UK losing access to cross-border cooperation to prevent cybercrime. It could also make it more difficult for the UK to build specialist teams with the cyber-skills needed to unpick cybercrime, as they are often hired from overseas. The situation in geopolitics is also impacting global efforts to improve how we protect ourselves online. The US, Russia and China this year refused to endorse a French-backed cybersecurity initiative that would have bolstered online security, despite 51 other countries backing it.

Getting a better understanding of the cybercrime economy

Now more than ever we need a coordinated global response to cybercrime, but current tensions are putting this at risk. Without a collaborative approach, we will never get a holistic view of cybercrime, leaving us unable to fully understand the motives of hackers. We need a complete picture of the dynamic and interconnected nature of the cybercrime economy, instead of treating crimes as individual instances and tactics. Furthermore, we won’t know how cybercriminals generate revenue, the platforms they use to conduct criminal activities and how they spend their profits or reinvest them in other types of crime, like drug production or organised crime.

Having a global understanding will enable us to become more agile, and able to keep pace with the rapid shifts in the cybercrime economy. This will help us understand the motivations and methods cybercriminals use, which can be shared among fellow nation states and governing bodies. But to do this, we need more intelligence gathering and coordination between global superpowers to stop hackers in their tracks, focusing directly on the economic structures of cybercrime.

Collaborating successfully

To combat cybercriminals, we must put aside geopolitics and focus on how to prevent cybercrime as a global problem. Without cooperation, disrupting cybercrime platforms and revenue flows will be impossible, leaving hackers free to continue running rampant in the digital ecosystem, able to rake in the cash and fund other criminal activities, including people trafficking and terrorism. If we are to successfully reduce cybercrime, we need international coordination to move beyond the simplistic firefighting. Only when we have this global understanding of the cybercrime economy can we disrupt the Web of Profit, and the structures that support it.

To learn more about platform criminality and the implications this has on organisations, law enforcement and the cybersecurity industry, please download Into the Web of Profit report here.

The post Lack of Collaboration Could be Putting Global Response to Cybercrime at Risk appeared first on Bromium.


*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Bromium authored by Dr Michael McGuire. Read the original post at: https://www.bromium.com/geopolitical-tension-cybercrime-risk/