EU Report: Cybercriminals Targeting Profits and Children

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The European Union’s police agency has recently noted that cybercriminals are exploiting online vulnerabilities and utilizing new technology to target more profitable victims.

Europol has recently published its annual Internet Organized Crime Threat Assessment Report. In it, the agency has mentioned that digital data has become a major target for hackers and cybercriminals. The report further notes that “data security and consumer awareness are paramount for organizations”.

The annually published report is mainly intended to give law enforcement and legislators the tools to analyze cybercrime trends. The cybercrimes that raise the most concern among these agencies are often fraud, theft, and child sexual exploitation.

The report also mentions how “deep fake” technologies, technologies that make it seem as though someone is saying or doing something that they aren’t, raises concern for online child sexual exploitation.

International police has also raised concerns regarding online scams where “employees receive requests for money in emails purportedly sent from within their own companies,” as mentioned by Courant.com. Also known as Business Email Compromise (BEC), this method of scamming companies has already cost victims over $1 billion dollars in the past year.

As a general trend, the number of cyberattacks is going down. However, criminals are now targeting larger and more profitable targets, causing major economic damage.