Cybercriminals Can Be More Organized than You Think

When you picture cybercrime, what goes through your mind? Do you see a hacker in a dark hoodie sitting in the corner of a room with lines of code furiously buzzing across the computer screen? If so, we have some news for you; cybercrime is anything but this perception. Let’s examine organized cybercrime and why it’s important for your business to take its growth into a full-blown industry seriously.

Explaining Cybercrime

Cybercrime is made up of hacks and scams that use the Internet to achieve their success. There are countless ways for hackers to bypass the security of even the most well-protected networks, but phishing is by far the most popular. Hackers have increasingly been relying on scamming people into doing the hard work for them through the use of phishing campaigns, either through the phone, via email, social media platforms, and even snail mail.

This shift is quite intentional, as it has become clear over the years that the growth of cybercrime is perpetuated by not just isolated individuals, but an industry of scammers out to get businesses like yours. It might seem odd to imagine large enterprise-level companies with specialties in hacking, complete with a supply chain to provide data theft and malware deployment services, but it exists, and it’s dangerous. The cybercrime industry has resources like any other software development company, including people who develop code, marketing and operations, and call centers all over the world. It’s scary to imagine.

Organized Cybercrime

The operations for organized cybercrime look shockingly like your traditional business. Imagine a company that creates fake websites designed to harvest credentials. This kind of endeavor requires a workforce, complete with professionals with various qualifications and skill sets. It will need people in an office or remote environment, complete with creative teams to build these scam websites, along with the emails and messages to fool people into clicking on them.

Marketing teams might promote these websites in the same way your own marketing team might promote its products. They might use backend analytics to see what brings people to their websites and share that knowledge with the designers or developers, creative teams, and other management executives. They are sure to have data analysts who dig through stolen data. A finance department may be put in charge of laundering any revenue, along with payroll for its workers, just like any ordinary finance department. All of this is held in place by management teams to keep operations running and to keep law enforcement agencies off their tracks.

The best cybercrime companies are those that run like the scenario outlined above, like a well-oiled machine—not unlike your own company. The more sophisticated these companies get, the less opportunity people have to discover them, so they can use their success to hide their presence and keep themselves running.

BNMC understands the challenges that come with protecting your business, and we don’t want to let advanced cybercrime deter you from keeping your business safe. We can help to protect you against any and all types of threats out there. To learn more, reach out to us at (978) 482-2020.