Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, recently published the 2021 Internet Organized Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA) report. The report, which is Europol’s flagship strategic product that provides a law enforcement focused assessment of evolving threats and key developments in the area of cybercrime, highlights the expansion of the cyber threat landscape due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and accelerated digitization. For this year’s assessment, the project team surveyed all European Union Member States (EU MS), a limited number of third Countries, members of Europol’s advisory groups, and internal specialists. 

The report includes detailed findings from the last 12 months in the areas of cyber dependent crime, child exploitation material, online fraud, and dark web.

Cyber Dependent Crime

Europol has previously defined cyber-dependent crime as any crime that can only be committed using computers, computer networks, or other forms of information communication technology. In essence, without the Internet, these crimes could not be committed. 

The assessment revealed that criminals are exploiting new opportunities created by expanded digitalization and the increase of work-from-home or telework for many employees due to the pandemic. Cybercriminals essentially began exploiting the fact that in many cases information security policies became more relaxed, the overall number of vulnerabilities and attack surfaces increased, and organizations struggled to quickly mitigate new security risks. 

The report examines the three ways criminals work to commit cyber-dependent crimes. These are ransomware affiliate programs, mobile malware, and DDoS attacks for ransom.            

Ransomware Attacks

The Europol report notes that ransomware affiliate programs have increased in prominence and are tied to a multitude of high-profile attacks against healthcare institutions and services providers. The affiliate programs enable a larger group of criminals to attack big corporations or high-value targets and gain access to their infrastructure. They use supply (Read more...)