Cyber crime gangs have been operating for years, but in recent months, they’ve shifted tactics. They’ve embraced new technologies, exploited new opportunities, delivered new payloads and sought out new targets. Their aim is to maximize the amount of money they can collect through cyber crime.
Gangs, such as Cosmic Lynx, Exaggerated Lion, Fin7 and Florentine Banker, have become major threats. Cyber crime gangs are getting smarter, increasingly basing their operations in countries beyond the legal reach of their targets. That enables them to engage in long-term attacks and continue using them after discovery. They’re banding together more than before. And they’re combining crimes — for example, ransomware and extortion.
They’re also seizing new opportunities quicker. For example, cyber crime gangs began to exploit the surge last year in the number of people working and being educated remotely. Because many of these transitions were unplanned, the cyber criminal organizations saw an opportunity. Some gangs are using typo-squatting and URL hijacking to imitate popular video conferencing applications. From there, they can take advantage of the fact that millions of people in business and education are unfamiliar with these platforms.
Taking the World By Surprise
All cyber attacks seek some element of surprise, but contemporary threat actors are getting better at faking authenticity. Some even use legitimate services for part of the scam.
In the past year or two, criminal gangs have increasingly set up legitimate-looking websites. They can also open social media accounts used just for social engineering. They’re able to deeply research targets to execute more sophisticated attacks.
A new whaling technique involves the research-intensive process of learning all a ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
