Security News
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.
Developed nations have higher incomes, technology, urbanization, and digitalization, which are all factors for greater cyber risk, says VPN provider NordVPN. Any person, organization, or country can be a victim of cybercrime, but some people and places are more susceptible than others. Looking at 50 different countries across the world, NordVPN found that people in developed nations are more likely to become victims of cybercrime.
At least eight US states and the federal government have lost millions of dollars due to cybercrime scams targeting unemployment benefits and funding from the CARES Act proceeds, according to the Secret Service and the cybersecurity company Agari. Cybercriminals with Scattered Canary have taken advantage of the situation according to Peterson, who wrote that the group filed more than 80 fraudulent claims for CARES Act Economic Impact Payments and even more claims for unemployment insurance in Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Washington, Wyoming and most recently Hawaii.
The term long tail first emerged in 2004, created by WIRED editor-in-chief Chris Anderson to describe "The new marketplace." His theory is that our culture and economy are increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "Hits" at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. You determine how to aggregate the events in a way that provides enough meaning for analysis.
On April 4th, INTERPOL delivered a rare warning to hospitals around the world to be on high alert for imminent cyber-attacks. While hospitals struggle to keep pace with a global pandemic, the number of ransomware attacks targeting organizations critical to virus response has also increased.
Don Smith, the firm's senior director of cyber intelligence, told The Register: "The threat level is pretty much constant but the actors have significantly shifted their focus, their lures and their phishes to almost exclusive focus on COVID-19," adding: "But that's just the same lures and phishes that would have been coming out with a different subject matter four months ago." "Because of the global appeal of COVID-19 and the longevity of it, everyone's kind of converged on the same theme at the same time," he said.
With the coronavirus economic crisis deepening, experts at University of Portsmouth are warning it will lead to the highest levels of fraud and cybercrime ever recorded. Respected economists have predicted the current crisis could lead to a substantial reduction in GDP with lowest estimates of a 7.4 per cent fall and highest estimates of a 35 per cent fall by the OBR. "These predictions could mean fraud levels increasing from at least 30.3 per cent and possibly even doubling if the 35 per cent fall was to occur. These are rough estimates, but illustrate that a substantial increase in fraud is likely as a consequence of the economic downturn."
Cybercrime is evolving since criminals have been quick to seize opportunities to exploit the pandemic by adapting their tactics and engaging in new criminal activities. Cybercriminals have been among the most adept at exploiting the pandemic.
Sophisticated state-supported actors are following cybercriminals in exploiting the coronavirous pandemic and posing an "Advanced persistent threat", French defence technology giant Thales warned Monday. Hades, linked to the APT28 which is believed to be of Russian origin and behind an attack on the US Democrat party in 2016, was the first state-backed group to use the epidemic as bait, Thales' cyber intelligence service reported.
There is a darker side to the Latin American hacking scene. "The cartels aren't using hackers to provide an alternative to drug money, just a relatively easy additional source of income - it's easier to use a hacker to syphon money out of an ATM than to break into one, or rob a bank."