Security News > 2020 > May > UK Ad Campaign Seeks to Deter Cybercrime

The ad campaign follows a similar initiative launched in late 2017 that academics say measurably dampened demand for such services by explaining that their use to harm others is illegal and can land potential customers in jail.

"The fact is, those standing in front of a classroom teaching children have less information about cybercrime than those they're trying to teach," Cox said, noting that the campaign is designed to support so-called "Knock-and-talk" visits, where investigators visit the homes of young people who've downloaded malware or purchased DDoS-for-hire services to warn them away from such activity.

Last year, Clayton and fellow Cambridge researchers published a paper showing that law enforcement interventions - including the NCA's anti-DDoS ad campaign between 2017 and 2018 - demonstrably slowed the growth in demand for DDoS-for-hire services.

"Our data shows that by running that ad campaign, the NCA managed to flatten out demand for booter services over that period," Clayton said.

DON'T BE EVIL. The NCA's ad campaign is competing directly with Google ads taken out by many of the same people running these DDoS-for-hire services.

News URL

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/05/uk-ad-campaign-seeks-to-deter-cybercrime/