The Commonwealth has recently released its first issue of a cybercrime journal to draw attention to policy-influencing articles and commentary by academics, policymakers, practitioners, and experts exploring significant cybercrime and cybersecurity issues. This first issue underscores regional cybercrime trends in Africa, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and the UK, highlighting on a thematic front artificial intelligence (AI) in judicial decision-making in criminal matters; the co-dependency between cybercrime and organised crime; and data privacy concerns in relation to bring-your-own-device (BYOD) working practices, among other topics.
Cybercrime
Chainalysis issues the 2023 cryptocurrency crime report
Private US company Chainalysis is a leading company in collecting and analyzing data used on cryptocurrency blockchains. In its annual report on cryptocurrency-related crime, they point out that illicit cryptocurrency volumes reach all-time highs amid a surge in sanctions and hacking.
‘Overall, the share of all cryptocurrency activity associated with illicit activity has risen for the first time since 2019, from 0.12% in 2021 to 0.24% in 2022.’ The company assesses that an equivalent of $20.6B is used for illicit activities.
A big part of that sum comes from the offenses related to the economic sanctions on Russia. This shows that a strict regime of sanctions is efficiently imposed on cryptocurrency exchanges, by the US department of the treasury, and international financial institutions. The report describes methods that are used for money laundering and fund transfers. As a key takeaway, Chainalisys points out that the impact of crypto sanctions depends on the jurisdiction and technical constraints.
Ransomware crypto payments
The report shows a decline in ransomware from 2021. Chainalisys claims that ransomware victims increasingly refuse to pay the ransom money hence pushing the criminals out of this scheme. The report is stating that “meaningful disruptions against ransomware actor groups are driving lower than expected successful extortion attempts” In 2021, the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued an advisory document about the risk of ‘sanction crimes’ that can rise from ransomware payments. OFAC advises all US companies to report ransomware to the FBI prior to any action. This is also considered to be one of the factors for the drop in ransomware payments. In addition, ransomware lifespan is significantly shorter. From 470 days in 2019, it is down to 70 days in 2022.
Money laundering
The report is stating a rise in money laundering activities from $14.2B in 2021 to $23.8B in 2022. The report is stating ‘underground money laundering services’ are a growing concern. Such groups use private channels on messaging apps to set and organise private transactions that are hard to track.
Cryptocurrency scams
Cryptocurrency scams and the use of cryptocurrency on darknet markets are on the decline compared to previous years.
Rise in ransomware attacks against manufacturing plans
A recent report by Dragos, a cybersecurity company, highlights the rise in ransomware attacks agains critical infrastructure and, in particular, against the manufacturing systems. The report shows that the manufacturing sector had at least 437 ransomware attacks in 2022, accounting for more than 70% of these disruptive attacks that industrial organisations had experienced the previous year.
The company identified a total of 605 ransomware attacks affecting the industrial sector in 2022, a 92% increase over the 315 attacks detected in 2021.
The report also epxlores the activity of two threat groups – Chernovite and Bentonite – that focus on attacking the industrial sector. While Chernovite targets electric, liquid, and natural gas companies in Europe and the USA, Bentonite mainly focuses on attacking maritime oil and gas companies, governments, and the manufacturing sector.
France, Germany, and Dominican Republic sign Second Additional Protocol to Budapest Convention
On 27 January 2023, Germany and France signed the Second Additional Protocol on enhanced cooperation and disclosure of electronic evidence to the Convention on Cybercrime (Budapest Convention). Three days later, the Dominican Republic also signed the second additional protocol and thus became the 34th state to sign it.
UK raises concern over Russian hacking group
The UK raises concern over an alleged information-gathering operation that has targeted numerous actors in government, politics, education, defence, journalism, and activism, carried out by a hacking group with ties to Russia called Cold River.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a division of the British government’s GCHQ spy agency, warned that Cold River conducts research on its targets and impersonates others in their near area using false email accounts and social media profiles. The Russian embassies in London and Washington did not immediately answer email requests for comments on the NCSC’s remarks. The Russian government was not specifically named as the source of the cyberattacks in the advisory.
US authorities shut down Hive ransomware variant networks
The US Department of Justice announced that it seized the networks of a major international ransomware variant named Hive. The Hive ransomware was responsible for extorting and attempting to extort millions of dollars from victims in the USA and around the world, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland stated. More than 1,500 victims worldwide were targeted, including hospitals, schools, financial firms, and critical infrastructure, with an estimated loss of more than $150 million.
Saudi Arabia targeted by the Iranian threat actor’s new identity
Cobalt Sapling, an Iranian threat actor, has been seen developing a new identity known as ‘Abraham’s Ax’ to use Saudi Arabia as political leverage.
The information was discovered by cybersecurity researchers at Secureworks’ Counter Threat Unit (CTU), who released an advisory about the new threat on January 26. Secureworks stated that the development of Abraham’s Ax and its attacks on Saudi government ministries illustrate its political intentions in a report emailed to Infosecurity.
Lazarus group responsible for virtual currency theft
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed that the DPRK cybercriminal group, Lazarus, is responsible for stealing $100 million of virtual currency from Harmony’s Horizon Bridge. FBI found that the portion of the stolen Ethereum, laundered during the June 2022 heist, was sent to virtual asset providers and converted to bitcoins.
Russia experienced record numbers of DDoS attacks in 2022
The biggest internet service provider in Russia, Rostelecom, reports that 2022 saw a record number of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against Russian organisations.
According to the Rostelecom report, its experts recorded 21.5 million critical web attacks aimed at approximately 600 organizations from various industries, including critical infrastructure, financial, and the private and public sectors. DDoS assaults accounted for 80% of all cyberattacks directed at Russian entities.
Other findings suggest that 30% of all observed cyberattacks in 2022 targeted the governmental sector, followed by 25% on financial organisations and services and 16% on educational institutions.
With more than 500,000 DDoS attempts found, Moscow was the most often targeted region in 2022. The largest documented attack was 760 GB/sec, while the longest DDoS lasted nearly three months.
New Consolidated Negotiating Document of the Cybercrime Ad Hoc Committee
The fourth session of the Cybercrime Ad Hoc Committee focused on amending the consolidated document prepared by the Chair Committee with the support of the Secretariat on November 7th, 2022. The new version was amended and will be further negotiated in the upcoming sessions. In General Provisions, the protection of human rights was highlighted by the EU and its member states, Canada, and the UK, while also emphasising that state parties shall carry out their obligations under international human rights law treaties.