China crackdown on cyber scams in Southeast Asia nets thousands but leaves networks intact

Zhang Hongliang, a former restaurant manager in central China, took various gigs in and outside China to support his family after losing his job during the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, a job offer to teach Chinese cooking at a restaurant Read More …

Rules of engagement issued to hacktivists after chaos

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has, for the first time, published rules of engagement for civilian hackers involved in conflicts. The organisation warns unprecedented numbers of people are joining patriotic cyber-gangs since the Ukraine invasion. The eight Read More …

ASEAN, China, and UNODC agree to a plan of action to address criminal scams in Southeast Asia

Senior officials from ASEAN, China and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have agreed to address transnational organized crime and trafficking in persons associated with casinos and scams. “Trafficking in persons connected to casinos and scam operations run Read More …

DoppelPaymer ransomware group suspects identified

The German police in cooperation with the US Secret Service have executed search warrants against suspected members of the DoppelPaymer ransomware group in Germany and Ukraine. In March of 2023 the German Regional Police and the Ukrainian National Police, with Read More …

Cyber-attacks: the apex of crime-as-a-service (IOCTA 2023)

The Spotlight Report ‘Cyber-attacks: the apex of crime-as-a-service’, examines the developments in cyber-attacks, discussing new methodologies and threats as observed by Europol’s operational analysts. It also outlines the types of criminal structures that are behind cyber-attacks, and how these increasingly Read More …

INTERPOL: 14 arrests, thousands of illicit cyber networks disrupted in Africa operation

DAR ES SALAM, Tanzania – INTERPOL and AFRIPOL have coordinated an operation across 25 African countries that enabled investigators to arrest 14 suspected cybercriminals and identify 20,674 suspicious cyber networks, highlighting the surge in digital insecurity and cyber threats in Read More …

IOCTA 2023: forget hackers in a hoodie, cybercrime has become a big business

Forget the cliché of a solitary figure in a hoodie hunched over a keyboard in a dark room crunching lines of codes. It is an image that no longer accurately reflects today’s cybercrime landscape, where criminals operate as business-like syndicates Read More …

Virtual kidnapping: How AI voice cloning tools and Chat GPT are being used to aid cybercrime and extortion scams

New technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), are typically developed to boost productivity, increase efficiency, and make our lives easier. Unfortunately, cybercriminals have also found ways to exploit them for ill gain. Recently, malicious actors have Read More …

Cyber Signals: Shifting tactics fuel surge in business email compromise

Today Microsoft released the fourth edition of Cyber Signals highlighting a surge in cybercriminal activity around business email compromise (BEC). Microsoft has observed a 38 percent increase in cybercrime as a service (CaaS) targeting business email between 2019 and 2022. Read More …

Man jailed for running multimillion-pound criminal website iSpoof

The man responsible for running a multimillion-pound fraud website, used by scammers to trick people into handing over their bank details, has been jailed. Tejay Fletcher, 35, pleaded guilty to running iSpoof, a website that allowed criminals and fraudsters to Read More …