CYBER SECURITY
How will we stop the march of cybercrime? By Alex Tilley, Head of Threat Intelligence Asia Pacific & Japan for Secureworks
I
t may seem obvious, but cybercrime must constantly evolve to survive. Not only are cybersecurity veterans like me constantly working to uncover, understand and counter new crime techniques, but technology itself is always evolving. This means cybercriminals are constantly creating new attacks to fit current trends, whist adjusting existing attacks to avoid detection. To understand how cybercrime could evolve in the future, I have looked at its colourful past as I have lived and breathed it for more than 20 years.
What is cybercrime? Although seen by many as “secret magic” Cybercrime needs to be thought of as “just another crime type” like drugs, illegal firearms trade and money laundering. It is complete full spectrum criminality that uses technology as it’s vehicle. Extortion, theft, property damage and fraud are amongst an extensive list of “traditional” crimes that are committed under the umbrella of “Cybercrime”. Where it does have some differences is in its often anonymous and sometimes “impersonal” nature (although some Cybercrimes are deeply damagingly personal). And although law enforcement agencies are trying to tackle this problem, investigations can be more difficult and time consuming than some traditional crime investigations involving new and specialised skills that Law Enforcement is working to acquire. On the whole Cybercrime continues to grow exponentially, and many people have become victims
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of identity theft, hacking and ransomware.
When did cybercrime emerge? Cybercrime has been around for decades, if there have been computers connected you can be sure that someone was thinking of a way to misuse their access, even if just to get free time on old university computer systems! Cybercrime as we know it now has really been maturing rapidly since the late 90s and early 2000s with criminals who started young with minor offences graduating to increasingly serious criminal activity as their abilities and criminal networks grew. In the 2020s cybercrime is a major threat that earns the criminals involved millions of dollars without as many of the risks of other traditional crime types.
The rationale behind cybercrime • • • •
Financial gain is the number one! Politically motivated – nation state attacks and espionage To access confidential information to cause reputational damage Vandalism/property damage
Financial gain To try and show this constant exponential loss per event amount as it relates to financially motivated cybercrime, I have called on my personal experience in working to try and
