IOCTA 2021 Published by Europol

Europol has published its Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment for 2021 (IOCTA 2021).  This highlights 5 Key Threats:

• Ransomware affiliate programs enable a larger group of criminals to attack big corporations and public institutions by threatening them with multi-layered extortion methods such as DDoS attacks.
• Mobile malware evolves with criminals trying to circumvent additional security measures such as two-factor authentication (2FA).
• Online shopping has led to a steep increase in online fraud.
• Explicit self-generated material is an increasing concern and is also distributed for profit.
• Criminals continue to abuse legitimate services such as VPNs, encrypted communication services and cryptocurrencies.

IOCTA 2021 looks into the (r)evolutionary development of these trends, catalysed by the expanded digitalisation of recent years.

• Criminals have been quick to abuse the current circumstances to increase profits, spreading their tentacles to various areas and exposing vulnerabilities, connected to systems, hospitals or individuals.
• While ransomware groups have taken advantage of widespread teleworking, scammers have abused COVID-19 fears and the fruitless search for cures online to defraud victims or gain access to their bank accounts.
• The increase of online shopping in general has attracted more fraudsters.
• With children spending a lot more time online, especially during lockdowns, grooming and dissemination of self-produced explicit material have increased significantly.
• Grey infrastructure, including services offering end-to-end encryption, VPNs and cryptocurrencies continue to be abused for the facilitation and proliferation of a large range of criminal activities.

This has resulted in significant challenges for the investigation of criminal activities and the protection of victims of crime.

“Cybercrime is a reality and law enforcement worldwide needs to catch up,” said Edvardas Šileris, Head of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), ”…….Only by working together can we create innovative ideas and practical approaches that can put a halt to cybercrime acceleration. It is essential to establish the environment and resources required to do so,” he added.

The EAST Expert Group on Payment and Transaction Fraud (EPTF), which meets three times each year, focuses on the prevention of payment and transaction fraud, including social engineering and online transactions.  The 11th EAST EPTF meeting took place on 10 November 2021.