Organised crime groups in the European Union have been increasingly working with Russia to attack critical infrastructure and public institutions in the bloc, according to a new Europol report.
There has been a substantial “increase in politically motivated cyberattacks against critical infrastructure and public institutions, originating from Russia and countries in its sphere of influence”, Europol warned in the report released March 18.
Hostile governments such as Russia’s have more frequently used criminal networks engaged in migrant smuggling “for geopolitical motives”, the EU law enforcement agency said.
These migrant-smuggling networks now offered “increasingly professional” advertising strategies across “multiple social media platforms in parallel”, it said.
One such criminal network has smuggled irregular migrants from Iraq, via Russia, Belarus and Turkey, to northern European countries and then on to Germany and the UK, Europol said.
The Finnish Government has accused Russia of providing irregular migrants with bicycles and foot-scooters to help them cross into Finland and Norway.
The migrants paid the networks between €3,000 and €5,000 per person, by “hawala” offices and in cryptocurrencies. Hawala is an informal funds transfer system that allows for the shifting of money from one person to another without the actual movement of money.
“Hybrid threat actors misuse the migratory situation to destabilise the EU and its member states, thereby also providing additional business opportunities to criminal players in the field,” said the law enforcement agency.
Criminal networks have increasingly been offering their services to governments and groups in a “Cybercrime-as-a-Service (CaaS) market”, said Europol.
For example, on March 10, Elon Musk’s X platform was briefly taken down by a hacker group called Dark Storm. It has also offered its services to pro-Russian “hactivist” groups”, cybersecurity experts said.
Cybercrime groups, often working with hostile governments, are also able more to effectively manipulate vast quantities of stolen data by using AI.
“The emergence of fully autonomous AI could pave the way for entirely AI-controlled criminal networks, marking a new era in organised crime,” Europol said.
European Commissioner for internal affairs Magnus Brunner said at the report’s launch: “The DNA of serious and organised crime is changing. And EU citizens can feel the change that is taking place.”
The report also contained a number of “ridiculous statements” about technology, argued computer scientist and cybercrime consultant Lukasz Olejnik, which showed “incomprehension of technology by major policymakers and law enforcement is dangerous”.
He drew attention to a passage in the report where Europol stated: “AI and other technologies such as blockchain or quantum computing have become a ‘catalyst for crime’.”
“Excuse me, what?,” said Olejnik.
“Quantum computing will not accelerate any crime because it does not exist in any useful form, it has no capability, and it cannot be used for crime!”
