One of the most notable changes in cybercrime since the beginning of the 21st century has been the maturation of the illegal industry from individual hackers to full-on profitable businesses. E-Root, a global illegal marketplace, was taken down by law enforcement in 2020 but recently made the news as its admin faces 20 years in prison for selling stolen Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and Secure Shell (SSH) accounts.
Code doesn’t write itself and software doesn’t secure itself, as much as the race is on to make that happen. At the beginning and end of everything in software is people and, importantly, people interacting with each other. Having great tools doesn’t matter if no one uses them, and having great policies doesn’t matter if no one enforces them.
This spring, Australian authorities were able to arrest a cybercrime syndicate that had conducted BEC attacks on at least 15 individuals and organizations with stolen profits totaling $1.7 million (USD). If those numbers seem shocking, they’re part of a growing upward trend of BEC attacks that shows no sign of slowing down.
If the holiday classic “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” was remade in 2023, the mean green guy might be played by an Internet bot. Sure, these bots may not come down your chimney and steal a tree or holiday dinner, but threat actors have designed them to help ruin retailer and consumer holiday shopping experiences. Trustwave SpiderLabs exposed how the two primary bot variants, Grinchbots and Freebie Bots, operate in the team's recent report.