CYBER CRIME: NEW PLAYERS AND APPROACHES MAY INCREASE THREAT LEVELS
In characterising the ever-evolving, ‘always on’ threats from cyber criminals, it is hard not to sound like a fearmonger trying to get the attention of chief information security officers (CISOs) and compliance officers at enterprise-scale businesses and government entities. Yet, the fact remains that 2023 was a good year for bad actors, and 2024 has already seen a rash of high-profile data breaches at some of the world’s leading brands. In March, large, risk-sensitive organisations such as American Express, Change Healthcare, Fujitsu, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Roku all experienced well-publicised data breaches.
The unfortunate truth is that cyber criminals are leveraging advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to dramatically accelerate their attacks and create synthetic identities to aid in their duping schemes.
As alarming as the use of new technology, there are also new players on the cyber crime landscape that are employing new approaches to carry out breaches. Knowing these players and their methods is vitally important to better understand how to prevent a data breach.
New players, new alliances
Certain nation states such as China, Iran, North Korea and Russia are known to sponsor cyber terrorism and crime, share intelligence, support evasion techniques and provide funding to the world’s most disruptive cyber gangs. Another country – India – is seemingly fast-joining the ranks as a major nation state sponsor of cyber attacks in 2024. Given the country’s large population of engineers and programmers, India has been a significant source of cyber attackers for years, with criminals primarily focusing their energies on Pakistan and China.
Jul-Sep 2024 Issue
Experian