Adding further complexity, adversaries are similarly “going digital”; online criminality is experiencing its own digital transformation revolution manifested largely by:
• The speed at which compromise methods and attacker behaviours are distributed as tools.
• The evolution of the criminal eco-system which is migrating away from the older online forum models towards more distributed, private channels.23
• The availability of tools and services that lower the skills bar for the attackers to effectively carry out attacks.
• The almost entrepreneurial nature of organized online crime which aims to scale the threat to maximize profits.
• The innovative trust models that continually evolve, creating ‘trust among thieves’ that enable the fencing of stolen information, or the anonymized payment of ransoms.
• The innovative methods for disrupting the identity of organizations and their critical services. As such, there can be no Digital Transformation without cyber-security. Cybercrime, digital espionage, and hacktivism (digital activism) have become serious risks to businesses and consumers