Many Cybercrime groups are getting bigger and bigger, and the combined efforts of many countries are trying to take these giants down. As we have looked at these past articles, we have learned about the dangers of cybercrime, the damage it can do, the innocent people involved, and the most important point. We can make a change, maybe not at first, but if people start caring more and more about this serious topic, Cybersecurity will constantly improve. This just shows if people work together, almost anything can be achieved, we just need to work hard at it.
Thank you for taking the time to learn about Cybercrime with me, and I hope you took something away from my research.
On the 16th of May, Wired posted an article called “Police smash ‘GozNym’ cybercrime network that stole $100 million ”. Wired has a left-center bias, but uses factual information. This article looks at a report from Europol. In this article Wired talks about Europol’s success in “disassembling” the cybercrime group “Goznym” – a Eastern European/Russian based Cybercriminal organization. They talk about each of the key members arrested, and how they operated. They also talk a bit about how their organization was based, having members all over Eastern Europe and Western Russia.
I believe that this article really shows that we can do something about all of this crime. From the dark web trading from a previous article, to the “money mules” of another previous article, to even a huge international organization like this one, this article in particular has shown us that people can stop this cybercrime. I think the fact that they listed out very detailed information about each key member and how they operated was very interesting to me, and showed how vulnerable they were once they were figured out. For example One man used a specific “wire-transfer” hack which was easy to stop once they knew what he was doing. The way the organization was structured also shows how organized these people can be like for example these people would have two people to get the information, then two to get into the account, then another two to use their accounts, etc. These organizations are like a company or a country, with a power hierarchy, but they are a group of criminals. I think showing off how powerful and organized these gangs can be, as well as showing that we can stop them, was a perfect way to go about this article, as its a problem-solution approach to the problem in this article, and I got some solid information on how they are structured from this article.
On the 2nd of April, An Independent News Source by the name of “Curious Frank” posted an article called “Autism and the Cyber Security Sector”. I could not find information on whether this website was biased, but it seems to be unbiased, and uses factual information, as they leave plenty of their super reliable sources such as the National Autism Society, etc. In honour of World Autism Day, this article dives into the benefits and challenges that people with Autism have in the Cybersecurity Industry. Curious Frank also looks into the fact that many Autistic people aren’t getting the work support that they need. For example 84% of Autistic adults do not have full time employment. They also talk about the change in focus towards autistic people in the cybersecurity industry. They end by talking about an event hosted by Oracle, designed to enable young autistic people to get access to employment.
Autism seems to be an important thing in the Cyber Security Sector, and this article by Curious Frank proves it. When I shifted my focus towards manipulation, I saw all these articles on Autism, and decided to look into them, and now we are here. This article dives into many important things that businesses need to know about autistic people. They have an infographic in the article which helps convey their message that autistic people have important skills for the cybercrime industry such as their very logic and detail oriented brain, which helps them – for example if they miss a semicolon, an autistic person usually will notice due to their logic and pattern based brain. I think the article talks a lot about the lack of employment opportunities for autistic people. Like i stated in my summary, 84% of autistic adults do not have a full time job. When there is such a big industry for them, I find this to be really interesting, and also sad. The article gives some information about how technology works in Autistic people’s brains, often mentioned how it is logical, and process based. I believe their message of empowering autistic people, as well as supporting them through really helps, and I believe that this is what I wanted in a lot of these articles, as many of my articles did not include these examples of supports that people could use. I hope my last article also has supports for the issue in place, no matter what it is about, because security is important, especially in a job field, as well as especially with a disorder like Autism.
On the 14th of March, An Independent News Source by the name of Slimgigs posted an article called “Autism, Cybercrime, and Security’s Skill Struggle – Dark Reading”. I could not find information on whether this website was biased, but it seems to be unbiased, and uses factual information. This article talks about the experiences of a woman by the name of Rebecca Ledingham, who is the current Vice President of cybersecurity at Mastercard, as well as a former cyber agent for the UK’s National Crime Agency. She noticed a trend early on, about cybercriminals having many different social behaviours. After these many criminals got detained, a majority of them were diagnosed with some form of Autism. The Article also talks about how many Cybergangs are manipulating teenagers with Autism, who are easier to manipulate, but also have exceptional skills with coding, due to a common autistic trait called hyperlexia, which is an extreme focus on letters and numbers, which is very important in code. They also talk about minor hacking programs in video games like Fortnite, where people as young as 14 years old are part of a hacking program for the game.
I love this article for a few reasons. First of all with my shift towards the manipulation aspect of cybercrime, Autism is a huge topic I can talk about, as it is pretty common, with 1 in 68 children in the U.S.A being diagnosed with Autism according to the CDC. Another reason being the amount of information they give, from the reasons that people with Autism excel in cybercrime, to what businesses should know when hiring a cybersecurity analyst with autism, and how they can benefit from it. People with Autism have a very common trait called hyperlexia. Hyperlexia makes people with Autism very good with numbers, letters, and patterns, often giving them very strong reading skills, as well as making them very strong with math and other logic based problems such as coding. They also bring up other information that makes them strong in the Cybersecurity industry, as well as making them strong cybercriminals – their amazing memory. In the article it states “A photographic memory is another trait seen in people with autism”, “It’s another quality that could, for example, help them think of a network architecture and visualize security holes.” They also give us some information that I found to be quite information, which also tied into my shift of focus, the “grooming” cybercriminals do to manipulate these autistic teenagers, some as young as 14 years old to hack for them. These cybercriminals act like their friends, until they have gotten them hooked onto their gang, and then they use them. Its very despicable but true information, which I’m happy they covered, to get the information out there. Finally the last point I really agree with is what business should know about Autistic employees. The article states things like “Organizations could benefit by welcoming employees with autism, but many don’t know how.” A statement like this is one I believe to be very true, and is really important information. They speak about how “the more you spell things out [for them], the easier it is” to work with them to benefit your company. They speak about how Microsoft has been successful, as many of the top Cybersecurity analysts have Autism. I believe this article has some great information on how these people with Autism are both strong allies when it comes to cybersecurity, as well as powerful enemies if they get manipulated by these crime groups.
On the 29th of April, The Guardian posted an article called “Police Scotland warns of rise in teens targeted as money mules ”. The Guardian usually uses factual information, but the way their articles are written has a slightly left center bias. Although the Guardian has a slight bias, I do not see a bias in this article. This article looks at a report from the Scottish Police’s Organised Crime and Counter Terrorism Unit (OCCTU). In this article the Guardian talks about the Scottish Police’s reports of “money mules”. These “money mules” are “individuals [that] are tricked” into laundering money for cybercrime gangs. These gangs trick these individuals, who are usually teenagers, into believing that they are working for a legitimate financial organization, who buys and sells technology. Many purchases these “money mules” will make are laptops, phones, and other technological equipment, which they will then send to the organization. The number of “money mules” has increased by 26% between January 2018, and September 2018, and has increased even more so in 2019. The Guardian ends the article with some examples of anti-fraud systems that have been set up on websites such as Pay.UK’s Mule Insights Tactical Solution (MITS), along with Vocalink.
From this article on, I have decided to shift towards the manipulation of innocents for the sake of cybercrime, and I think the manipulation of teenagers into commiting a crime with – in Scotland a 14 year sentence, is pretty low if you ask me. I believe that both Police Scotland, and The Guardian do a pretty good job at describing how these “money mule” scams work, going into detail from the recruitment process, to how teens cannot get out of these scams usually. I believe that a support system needs to be set up for these teenagers like a hotline for example. This is because of the fact that in many cases these teens’ “family [have been threatened] when they have tried to back out”. I believe that although The Guardian does a good job with educating their readers, I hope that in a future article they could cover how you actually deal with a “money mule” if for example a family member is forced into one of these positions, as I think this information would be important to regular readers, as well as myself. As I said before, I have decided to shift the focus of my articles towards the manipulation of innocents, as I have found some interesting articles, and hope I can educate you a little bit more.
On the 12th of April, BBC News posted an article called “Liverpool ‘dropout’ jailed for Silk Road dark web site”. BBC News usually uses factual information, but the way their articles are written has a slightly left-leaning bias. Although the BBC News has a slight bias, I do not see a bias in this article. This article dives into a court case about a 24 year old University Drop out by the name of Thomas White. The article talks about his time as an Administrator on the notorious “Silk Road” dark web site, and the things he has done to deserve his jail time, mainly in the forms of selling over 400 images of child pornography, as well as trading over 128 million dollars worth of goods such as multiple different types of drugs, as well as confidential info from the F.B.I and NASA.
Many people don’t understand the sheer amount of influence the dark web has, and this is a perfect example. This man was a university dropout, and has made an estimated 40 million dollars in the past year from these mass illegal trades. Of course like this article states, the website has “achieved notoriety”, as it is a pretty notorious site, but there are many websites that are much smaller than this, and have horrible things on them, from instances of child pornography, to live kidnapping and torture sessions. This case is especially scary because of how small of a sentence this notorious criminal received. The article states that Thomas White, recieved 5 years in prison for the creation, possession, and distribution of child pornography, drug trafficking, money laundering, distribution of heroin, etc. The list of crimes go on, but how many years did he get in prison? Five! I believe this article reveals to us something really important that we need to take into account. The fact that people don’t seem to take online criminals as seriously as regular crimes. In Nebraska for example, a regular Class III felony (a basic conviction for possession of child pornography), comes with a sentence of 20 years. That’s one of his many crimes, and he got a quarter of that sentence. I believe that we need to work towards to judging these online criminals the same as regular criminals. I believe this article does a good job with talking about what the Silk Road is, as well as his crimes, and they don’t seem to have a bias throughout the article. I learned quite a bit from this article, and this has helped build on my understanding on the dark web.
On the 6th of May, The New York Times posted an article called “How Chinese Spies Got the N.S.A.’s Hacking Tools, and Used Them for Attacks.” The New York Times has a moderate Left-Center bias, often using convincing language, as well as viewing many issues with a “liberal lens”. Although they may be slightly biased, they have been known to use highly factual information. This article dives into a report by Symantec, which is a well known digital security company. In this report, as well as the article they speak about the N.S.A, as well as a group of “Chinese Intelligence agents”, which are referred to as “Buckeye” by Symantec.. They proceed to talk about the damage that has been caused by these “Chinese Intelligence Agents” stealing N.S.A hacking software, such as the mass cyber attacks by the Chinese using this American software on countries like Luxembourg, Vietnam, Belgium, The Philippines, and Hong Kong. For example one attack on a major unnamed telecommunications network have given “Chinese intelligence officers” possible access hundreds of thousands to millions of private communications.
These cybergroups seem to be very common, and hit very hard. Like my last article, these Chinese “Buckeye” hackers are very important to get rid of as they are doing so much damage to all of these countries. The New York Times seems to use a lot of information about the fact that they are definitely Chinese, but in all of this information, it is never stated that they are Chinese Intelligence Officers. For example the article talks about the indictment of three Chinese hackers in the group “Buckeye”, but then states “While prosecutors did not assert that the three were working on behalf of the Chinese government.” I believe this to be slightly biased, but I also believe that there is a possibility that this group could be working for the Chinese Government, and I don’t like to think about the possibility of a huge cyber-war, but it could happen.There are more and more cases of these Government Funded groups popping up all the time, and we need to focus more on these groups, as well as independent hackers that try to cause as much destruction as possible.
On the 11th of April, Digital Information World posted an article called “Market is Offering Access to Full Digital Fingerprints of Over 60,000 users”. Digital Information World seems to be unbiased, and uses factual information. This article dives into a report by KasperSky Labs, which is a well known antivirus/digital security company. In this report, as well as the article they speak about Genesis, which is a “dark web forum” where cyber criminals buy and sell people’s digital information, and with a specially created browser extension by Genesis, these cyber criminals can completely disguise themselves online with somebody else’s online information, including passwords and credit card details. It is also stated that Genesis has tested these masks on the top 47 digital analytical systems, as well as 283 major bank digital security systems without fail.
I believe this is one of the main things people need to worry about — online impersonation. This is a huge thing, especially when the report states that there are at least 60,000 of these “digital masks” already made. The article states that it is “high time for companies” “to upgrade the user identification mechanisms for extra protection of their users” which I completely agree with, I believe that after looking at these statistics, companies need to get working on improving their general digital security. These profiles of users are very cheap for criminals too. These profiles range from $5 to $200 depending on the information that is on the profile, but 200 dollars really is not a lot for somebody to pay for credit cards, as well as other sensitive information. This is especially cheap for how accurate the information is, because Genesis’ browser extension makes you look like the actual person, which is a really scary thing when you think about it.
On March 25th, Forbes posted an article called “Cybercrime: A Major Threat To Trust In The Digital Economy”. This article talks about companies around the world as a whole, and doesn’t focus on a specific company. Forbes is a biased, right-leaning news site that is biased with how they report articles, having reported false stories on climate change in the past. Forbes goes into their predictions of how much people will lose, which is about $5.2 trillion U.S. They then go into another topic — how much people do not care about protecting their companies. The article states that although 90% of bankers and insurers said that they believe a safer digital economy is a critical factor in how much further they grow, but only 25% of these same bankers and 30% of these same insurers are confident in their online security. Forbes then ends the article with their own suggestions of what companies could do to strengthen their online security, listing things like working together with other companies to “govern globally” when it comes to cyber security.
I think like the last article, that the fact that these huge nations and businesses losing so much money to these cyber criminals is an important thing, as you would think these first world countries, as well as these big businesses would have excellent cyber security, but when you look at the facts it really isn’t the case. This article seems to offer “strong solutions” but I do not believe these to be the case. Many companies are diverse, and don’t want to work with other companies, especially competition so Forbes is crazy if they think that 45508 different countries will work with each other to govern this global market that is the internet. Another weak strategy they have basically says in a more complicated way “make their digital security stronger”. They don’t actually offer any ways how they could do this, so I don’t believe this is an important point to mention, as they are not actually offering valid solutions. Although I see what they are trying to get across with the fact that most companies don’t have great cyber security, and that they need to improve it, I think that if they could come up with better examples, it would improve their credibility, as well as making their article actually useful, while still getting the point across that they want to get across.
On the 27th of January, BBC news posted an article called “UK cyber-crime victims lose £190,000 a day”. BBC News usually uses factual information, but the way their articles are written has a slightly left-leaning bias. Although the BBC are considered a biased news source, I do not see any bias in this article, as it only lists statistics and recommendations for security. The article talks about the large amount of money lost due to cybercrime. In this case, residents of the UK lost £14.8 million in the past 6 months. They also talk about one of these scams – a “correct your licensing information” email, that required you to enter your credit card details. Throughout the article it says a few ways that you can “stay safer online”, whether that be watching what links you click or what phone numbers you call, to having a different password for email accounts.
This was a great article for me to start with, because it seriously highlights the loss that can occur with cybercrime, even with a big first world country like the United Kingdom. This article is obviously about the United Kingdom, but these statistics should be recognized by everybody to show how much cybercrime affects us. This article seems to repeatedly show examples of different cybercrime wherever possible, and they seem to be many extremes such as sexual extortion or mass amounts of money being siphoned. I’m curious on why it’s almost like they are trying to scare people, but I do agree with the fact that with all these instances of cybercrime, we need to make dealing with it a higher priority, before it gets worse and worse.
Cybercrime Blog 