Cybercrime becomes more aggressive due to lack of security awareness

According to a study conducted by Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), malware, particularly ransomware, remains a key threat for private citizens and businesses both in terms of quantity and impact.

The lack of digital hygiene and security awareness contributes to the long lifecycle of exploit kits using well-known attack vectors but also provides new attack vectors as the number of devices in the Internet of Things grows.

Also, the growing internet coverage in developing countries and the development of pay-as-you-go streaming solutions providing a high degree of anonymity to the viewer, are furthering the trend in the commercial live streaming of child sexual abuse. The use of anonymisation and encryption technologies is widening. Attackers and abusers use these to protect their identities, communications, data and payment methods.

The report identifies a number of key recommendations to address these developments, such as the continuation of close law enforcement cooperation in targeting the key criminal networks and criminal facilitators for cybercrime with a special focus on cross cutting crime enablers such as bulletproof hosting and laundering services.

The report also suggests that law enforcement authorities should seek to actively engage in and share the success of multi-stakeholder initiatives such as Europols Airline Action Days and E-commerce initiative. Adequate resources should be given to prevention strategies to raise awareness of cybercrime and increase standards in online safety and information security.