EC3 - Activities of Cybercriminals Becoming More Severe

Economia.icaew.com published news on 10th February, 2014 stating that according to a new report of Europol's European Cybercrime Center (EC3), cybercriminals are concentrating their hard work on cloud services.

The EC3 which is an EU organization formed in January 2013 to co-ordinate cross-border law enforcement actions in opposition to cybercrime, forecasted that cybercriminals will increasingly hack such services to spy, retrieve and extort credentials.

The EC3 warned that ranks of cybercriminals are growing but the threshold is dropping and said that already a comprehensive secretive economy has emerged where all types of criminal goods and services are bought and sold which include weapons, drugs, hired killings, child abuse, and stolen payment credentials.

It predicted that demand and exploiting of online crime services will grow resulting in greater development, testing and circulation of malware. Moreover, different ways of dispensing belligerent and defiant types of malware are anticipated in the next couple of years.

Irishexaminer.com published a report on 11th February, 2014 quoting a comment on this exciting finding by Troels Orting, Head of the European Cybercrime Center as saying, "I am especially concerned about the growing intricate types of malware that are surfacing with more technologically sophisticated cybercrime and purported 'sextortion' of kids." He referred to the practice of blackmailing someone on the Internet with photographs or information.

The new report also revealed that social networking media or e-mail account of 12% of Internet users in Europe have been hacked and 7% of users have been victim of credit card or banking fraud online.

EC3 will continue to aid EU member of state law enforcement organizations to combat this offense and map out the scandalous proceeds. In the meantime, we should increase awareness amongst all users of Internet to avoid further impact.

Europol also accentuated the requirement for additional cross-border collaboration between state members to tackle Police ransomware as well few rules on how to steer clear of being victimized by the scam.

These include guarantying your computer loaded with up-dated version of anti-virus (AV) software, checking any attachments carefully before opening, regular backing up of your computer and exposing to Police authorities about any apprehensive incidents.

» SPAMfighter News - 2/26/2014