In July 2024, Europol published the 10th edition of its Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA). For the 2023 report → eucrim 2/2023, 145-146.

The IOCTA 2024 offers an in-depth assessment of the key developments, changes, and emerging threats in cybercrime during the year 2023. The report's five chapters cover cryptocurrencies and the dark web, cyber-attacks, child sexual exploitation, online payments and fraud, and what to expect in the near future.

Millions of victims across the EU are attacked and exploited online on a daily basis, with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) being increasingly targeted, as they tend to have fewer cyber defences. According to the report, the following were the biggest threats over the past year:

• An ever-growing volume of online child sexual abuse material (CSAM) including cases of AI-assisted, AI-altered ,and AI-generated CSAM;
• Investment, business email compromise (BEC), and romance fraud as well as digital skimming;
• AI-based tools and services becoming common tools for cybercriminals and a prominent commodity in the crime-as-a-service (CaaS) market, helping fraudsters to refine their social engineering capabilities;
• Ransomware groups splitting up and reorganising under different guises.

Key enablers of cybercrime include the dark web, cryptocurrencies and underground banking as well as cybercriminal abuse of legitimate end-to-end encryption (E2EE) messaging.

Looking at criminal actors, the report finds that the number of cybercriminals entering the market continues to grow steadily, comprising both lone actors and networks with various levels of expertise and capability. They operate from both within the EU and from third countries. Providers of ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) compete for the services of high-level affiliates and developers, with some affiliates beginning to develop their own ransomware to lower their dependence on RaaS providers. Notably, the majority of criminals are young and unaware of the legal consequences of what they see as a mere challenge or game, even though their crimes have far-reaching implications for their own futures.

The report highlights the need for a renewed focus on offender prevention that addresses cybercrime at its core, leading to more sustainable and long-term solutions. It therefore recommends addressing the root causes that drive individuals to engage in cybercriminal activity, such as lack of awareness, financial incentives, and socio-economic factors. Cyber Offender Prevention (COP) is therefore seen as a key strategy, alongside investigative measures, in effectively combatting cybercrime.