This piece summarizes Europol’s 2023 Internet Organized Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA), underscoring the rise of Crime-as-a-Service (CaaS). As cybersecurity improves, cybercriminals have adapted by specializing and collaborating in a vibrant underground economy. Europol found that the cybercrime landscape is now a “complex web of interdependence” where different actors provide niche services to each other. For instance, “initial access brokers” now sell hacked access to networks on dark forums, often to ransomware groups, acting as crucial enablers for big attacks. Likewise, developers offer malware obfuscation tools, while social engineers sell phishing kits, all on a service model. The article emphasizes that the fundamentals of cybercrime remain the same (e.g. phishing, fraud, infrastructure hacks), but the execution is increasingly professionalized through CaaS and dark web marketplaces. On a better note, Europol also highlighted successes in law enforcement collaboration against such operations.
