Internet frauds as simple as always, while flourishing the Cyber crime markets bloom
“Looking back at the 1990s and early 2000s, you should have had a reasonable level of technical competence to withdraw these types of crimes,” Nicholas Court, Assistant Director of Financial Crime and Anti-corruption of Interpol, told CNBC, Nicholas Court.
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The expanded Cyber crime network is facilitated to become a professional fraudster, which is an unprecedented threat of cyber -safety around the world, experts warn.
Cyber-Kriminals are often portrayed in popular media as groomers and highly qualified individuals, who have coding and hacking abilities from a poorly lit room. But such stereotypes become outdated.
“Looking back at the 1990s and early 2000s, you should have had a reasonable level of technical competence to withdraw these types of crimes,” says CNBC, Nicholas Court, Assistant Director of Financial Criminal and Anti-Corruption of Interpol.
Today, the obstacles to the entry of Pale are “quite significant,” the court said. For example, getting personal data, such as address E -šte, and massive sending messages of unwanted mail – one of the oldest internet frauds in the book – has never been easier.
Cibernetic security experts say the change has occurred due to progress in the technology of fraud and growth of organized internet markets on which to buy and sell and sell resources for cyber crime.
Growing economy from cyber crime
“The last decade or something has recorded the evolution of the Cyber-criminal rogue evolution into organized groups and networks that are all part of the successful underground economy,” said Tony Burnside, Vice President and Head of the Asian-Pacific in Netskopa, a cloud safety company.
The ride of this trend was the appearance of global underground markets offering “cyber-criminals as a service” or “CAAS”, through which suppliers charge customers for different types of malicious tools and cyber-criminal tools, he added.
CAA -e examples include ransomware and hacking tools, Botneti For rent, stolen data and everything else that can help cyber criminals in their illegal activities.
“The availability of these services certainly helps to enable more cyber -criminals, allowing them to increase and sophisticate their crime, while reducing the necessary technical expertise,” Burnside said.
CAAS is often found in markets in Darknet – a part of the Internet that uses encryption technology to protect the anonymity of users.
Examples include the Abacus, Torson Market and Styx, although the highest markets are often changing as the authorities exclude them and new ones appear.
Burnside adds that the criminal gangs operated by CAAS services and markets have begun to act like “legitimate organizations in their structure and processes.”
In the meantime, suppliers on these illegal exchanges tend to accept payment only in the cryptic currency in attempts to remain anonymous, unclear income and avoid detection.
Silk roadThe infamously dark web market that has closed the implementation of the law in 2013, many have recognized as one of the earliest large cryptocurrency applications.
Darknet comes out of the shadow
Although the use of a Crypto currency on the CYBER Crime Market can help cover up the participant’s identity, this may also do their activities more tranquility on Blockchain, according to Chainlysis, a Blockchain research company that accompanies illegal crypto transactions.
According to chain data, although Darknet markets remain a major factor in the Global Cyber -Crymallo ecosystem, larger activity is moving to public internet and safe messages of messages such as telegram.
The largest of these markets identified by the chains is Huione guarantee-platform associated with Cambodian conglomerate Huione Group-Ze, which the company says it operates as “one place for almost every form of cybercrige”.
The platform in Chinese acts as a Peer-Per-PEER market, on which suppliers offer the chain services, they say they are related to illegal activities such as money laundering and fraud with crypt.
Sellers pay advertising on the Huione website, often directing interested parties into private telegram groups. If the sale is made, Huione seems to act as Escrow and challenges the mediator to “guarantee” the exchange.
Lancam data show that the suppliers on Huione guaranteed a whopping $ 70 billion in the 2021 Crypto transaction. Meanwhile, Elliptic, another blockchain analytical company, estimates that the Huione Group subjects have received at least $ 89 billion in the cripthum property, which is “done”, making it “The largest ever illegal online market.“
The platform advertises and directs potential customers on the supplier groups on the Telegram who offer everything, from fraud and money laundering to the accompaniment of services and illegal goods.
Judging by the proportion and quantity of transactions to Huione guarantee, it is likely to use numerous organized criminal groups, according to Andrew Fierman, head of national security intelligence in Chainlaysis.
However, he adds that many services do not cost a lot of money, providing a low obstacle to entering and approaching the Cyber -criminal for “anyone who has an internet connection”.
According to Chainlysis, individuals who want to ease “romance” or investment fraud can buy the necessary tools and services on Huione for only a few hundred dollars. Costs can reach thousands of dollars, depending on the complexity level they want to execute.
Investing or romantic fraud include fraudsters who build a relationship with a victim through social media or socializing applications, intending to get them out of money through a false opportunity to invest.
A burglar trying to pull this type of fraud could buy Huione guarantee for portfolio of potential victims, such as telephone numbers; Old accounts on social media that seem to be of real people; And AI software for manipulation of face and voice manipulation, which fraud can use to digitally disguise it.
Other goods and services located on the site include false platforms for investing and gambling to which fraudsters are trying to state victims in disposing of funds.
In renunciation of responsibility on its website, the platform says that it does not participate or does not understand or understand the special companies of its customers and is only responsible for guaranteeing payment between customers and sellers, according to the CNBC translation of the statement in Chinese.
According to Fierman, Huione’s activity seems to be concentrated in Cambodia and China, but there is evidence that other platforms appear.
‘Children’s Play’
As the CAASA Crime Crime Markets are still growing, the technology offered and exploited by criminal suppliers also progressed, allowing more sophisticated fraud in proportion – with less effort, experts say.
A-Generates Deepfake Videos and Voice Cloning are increasingly real, with previously unchanging attacks now realistic thanks to the generative progress of AI, said Kim-Hock Leow CEO, Cybersecurity Company Wizlynx Group.
Last year, Hong Kong police reported That a financial worker at a multinational company cheated on paying $ 25 million to deceitors using Deepfake technology to present himself as the company’s CEO in a video conference call.
“This would be completely impossible to get out just a few years ago, even for criminals with technical skills, and now it is a sustainable attack even for those without without,” Netscope’s Burnside added.
Meanwhile, cyber -safety experts told CNBC that AI tools can be used to improve phishing and social engineering, helping to write more personalized and human messages.
“She has become a children’s game to create a truly convincing false E -Mail, audio notes, pictures or videos designed for victims and fraud,” Burnside said, noting that the dark variants of legitimate generatory ai tools continue to find their way in dark markets.
Efforts in prevention
Due to the global and anonymous nature of the CAAS CAAS -CRIMINAL -CRIMINAL supplier, the police said to the police very difficult, the CNBC cyber security experts said, noting that the markets that were extinguished often on the surface were under different names or were replaced.
For this reason, Interpolova Nicholas Court says Cyber -criminal is not a kind of activity “You can arrest your way.”
“The scope of crime becomes so fast that it is actually harder to capture the same share of the Cyber -Kriminalci,” he said, adding that it requires a significant focus on campaigns for prevention and public consciousness to warn the fast sophistication of fraud and a tools.
“Almost everyone is receiving messages of fraud these days. Although it used to be enough to tell people not to send money to someone who refuses a video call, that’s no longer enough.”
At the level of the company, Leow Wizlynx Group says that as Cyber-criminals become more technologically technologically and AI-Pamet, so do the companies’ cibernetic safety protocols.
For example, ALI tools can be used to automate the safety systems at the company level, lowering the threshold for discovering and accelerating the response time, he added.
In the meantime, new tools appear, like “Dark web monitoring“which can monitor CYBER crime markets and underground forums for leaked or stolen data, including credentials, financial data and intellectual property.
“It has never been easier” to commit cyber crime, so the key priority of cyber security is by investing in technological solutions and increasing employees’ awareness, Leow said.
