Europol: We Need to Disrupt Cybercrime

Europol: We Need to Disrupt Cybercrime
by infosecurity
 
Law enforcement agencies lack the resources to prosecute all cybercrime. Instead they will need disrupt it, says Europol's Troels Oerting.
Law enforcement agencies will no longer have the resources to investigate, or prosecute, all cybercrime. That was the stark warning given by Europol's Troels Oerting, during his opening keynote at Infosecurity Europe 2014. 
Instead, agencies need to put more emphasis on disrupting cybercrime. This may mean not investigating some crimes, and accepting a degree of loss. Police force cybercrime units, and other investigators, will be forced to prioritise. "There may be crimes we don't investigate", he said.
The warning comes against a background of growing internet use, and a growing dependence on the internet, in Europe.
According to Oerting, 78% of Europeans are now online, and economies depend on the net for their operations. "We don't produce things on a [factory] conveyor belt now", he said. "We need the internet." But the growing importance of the internet is also increasing the risks. "The attack surface is widening", he warned.
But a move away from manufacturing, to knowledge-based industries, has opened up new avenues for crime.
Oerting pointed out that law enforcement officers divide criminality into two categories: cybercrime, and internet "assisted" crime. Assisted cybercrime includes activities such as financial fraud and theft from banks' ATMs, as well as child abuse images. Criminals are using the net, and especially the dark net, to communicate, collaborate and sell their wares; they send funds using Bitcoin. It is becoming harder to "follow the money", and even agencies such as the NSA struggle to see inside the dark net, he said.
 
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