Cybercrime ‘overgrowth’ alert in 2023: How hackers attack today

He cyber crime it grows and grows. Now everyone gets emails with links to trout web pages from where they try to steal passwords from banks or other services or messages Whatsapp OR instagramwhich has as its ultimate goal the money robbery or directly from the account.

In fact, 85% of businesses were attacked last year, most with ransomware, a program which, if installed, can steal files and encrypt them. The scammers then demand a ransom “to set them free”. The data was released by the cybersecurity solutions company veembased on a survey of 4,200 companies from countries around the world, including Argentina.

And this year things will be worse. “Given the success cybercriminals have had with RaaS (Ransomware as a Service), an increasing number of additional attack vectors will be accessible as a service on the dark web. Therefore, there will be excessive growth in cybercrime in 2023,” he said. informed clarion the cybersecurity consultancy BTR.

This same consultancy added that cyber gangs will hire “investigators or detectives” on the dark web to thoroughly investigate a target before launching the attack. And there are other predictions.

Ransomware doesn’t stop

It will be the number one threat to businesses in 2023, and the ransomware ecosystem will continue to evolve and grow with more concentrated, smaller, and more agile criminal groups.

Virtual cities, the new attack ground

“As people can buy goods and services in virtual cities, use digital wallets, exchange cryptocurrencies, NFTs or any other type of digital asset to transact, cybercriminals have a growing attack surface,” says BTR Consulting.

Money laundering migrates to the cryptocurrency world

By 2023, money laundering “mule” recruitment campaigns will be replaced by automated services that move proceeds through cryptocurrency, a process that is faster and harder to track down, according to the consultancy firm.

Watch out for Slack, Teams and Google Drive

This year, cybercriminals will extend their targeting of collaboration tools like Slack, Teams, OneDrive, and Google Drive with phishing exploits. These are a valuable source of sensitive data and their use has grown exponentially due to the remote way of working.

Attention on WhatsApp

The arguments of those who pretend to be a frequent contact on WhatsApp are many, but they always revolve around the same thing: economic situations. They ask for a payment to be made to a third party on an account just indicated, other times they ask for financial help, they ask for the urgent payment of a bill, debt or emergency. These attacks usually occur at night or early in the morning, on weekends, long weekends, or holidays.

raise your guard

The priorities for states, companies and institutions should be “strengthen their privacy defenses and regulatory frameworks, form working groups to reduce human error and develop mechanisms to respond immediately to risk”, concludes the BTR report.