Rise of the Machines: FIRST HUMAN VICTIM – 2015

Death via internet, online contract killers and crime-as-a-service were just three of the scarier elements discussed by international top cops at the Interpol-Europol cybercrime summit in Singapore last week.

The Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment, a report prepared by Europol’s cybercrime division, warns that the so-called Internet of Things has created a target for new forms of blackmail, ransomware and “possible death”.

Thanks to machine-to-machine communication, more and more critical every day devices are becoming connected, and it’s apparently only a matter of time before a rogue smart car or hacked pacemaker kills someone.

Europol estimates that there are 10 billion internet-enabled devices. “Cybercriminals need not be present in target countries and are able to conduct crime against large numbers of victims across different countries simultaneously with minimum effort and risk,” says the report.

It also warns that traditional organised crime is morphing into a crime-as-a-service industry, with contract killers available for hire on the darknet.

The report recommended law enforcement agencies to urgently develop their understanding of “how virtual currencies operate, and how to recognise the wide variety of digital accounts which may hold a suspect’s digital assets as a key means to seize the proceeds of crime”.

At last week’s conference, which closed on Friday, all parties agreed that there was a need to coordinate enforcement activities through better information exchange, including “disseminating early warning messages, conducting assessments of inter-regional cyberattacks, carrying out operations to take down Botnets and standardization of training, tools and processes.”

The head of Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), Troels Oerting, said the engagement and input from delegates had served to “increase understanding and encourage greater interaction between the various sectors involved”. ®