Bad month for Cybercrime

It has been a bad month for cybercrime. Yes, attacks are on the way up. Yes, they are still extorting money and causing infrastructure chaos. But there is a massive, shadow-busting spotlight on them right where they live. Defense technology and law enforcement are catching up.

Foremost in the bad news is the international takedown of the Lockbit ransomware emporium and its customers. It only took a week before they claimed to be back up and running, but governments worldwide now have the technology and the industry partners to find them. Their reputation is severely damaged.

Blame game

When the world started its internet addiction our collective tech was not designed to be secure and bit by byte the criminals found every weakness possible, even some that no one thought was a weakness. Hardware engineers blamed software. Software developers said it was an IT issue. IT people said the hardware and software engineers were stupid, but not as stupid as the users. For most of that time, users had to learn how bad the technology was and start using it like they were disarming a bomb every morning when they turned on their phones.

But thanks to the rise of the cybersecurity industry, users are better educated and the makers of the tech are being held accountable in capitols all around the world. We haven’t won the war and may never win, but the criminals’ bank accounts are shrinking and prosecutions are rising.

Ransomware

While ransomware attacks have doubled since before the pandemic, a recent report from CoveWare offered some staggering numbers about the state of ransomware. In 2019, about 75 percent of ransomware victims admitted to paying the ransom. Last year, with ransomware attacks hitting an all-time high, and less than a third admitted paying. Moreover, those that did pay, paid less than half of the demand through negotiation. That was due to a combination of newly deployed defensive technology, education on cyber hygiene, and a few laws that banned the payment of ransom.

The greed of the ransomware gangs also played a major part and the failure to pay. Companies learned that even if they paid the ransom gangs were more likely to sell stolen data or hit the companies again after they had recovered. Insurance companies balked at paying out claims due to security negligence and the companies learned that the cost of restoration didn’t get cheaper after paying a ransom. Why even cooperate?

Artificial Intelligence

The rapid rise of AI in the past year and a half opened an entirely new front for cybercrime. Deepfake video and audio for romance scams and financial fraud arrived as as fast as commercial AI tools landed on the market. Recently, the kinda-scuzzy dating app Tinder now requires video selfies to crack down on the use of generative AI to produce profile pictures that were used to trick users.

The criminal use of generative AI wasn’t just an attack on corporate and personal finances. State actors employed criminals to interfere with elections. With more than 4 billion people going to the polls around the world, deepfake videos and audio were flooding into social media and used in automated phone calls to potentially alter outcomes.

The faked call from President Joe Biden to New Hampshire Democrats urging them not to vote in the state’s primary was discovered early. It only took a few weeks using AI-detection tools to not only identify what company provided the technology but also the user.

Identifying criminals

We talked with, Vijay Balasubramaniyan, CEO of Pindrop, whose technology can reliably identify AI-generated video and audio tech. Vijay did not confirm whether his product was used in this investigation. In a Wired interview where he said his tool identified the call as a fake “north of 99 percent.” Independent researchers at first claimed that number was hard to believe, but after running tests grudgingly admitted, “Yeah, that’s pretty close.”