Cybercrime is set to become a world power in the next five years in terms of economic activity.
Researchers with Mastercard, borrowing on numbers from Statista, said that criminal activity could account for $15.6 trillion dollars of economic activity by the year 2029. That figure would put the flow of cash only behind the United States and China in terms of economic activity.
“Cybercrime is one of the great threats of our time. It ruins lives, destroys businesses, erodes trust in the digital ecosystem and undermines global stability,” the researchers noted.
“It’s bigger than the economies of India, Germany and Japan combined, displays double digit growth year on year and is fueled by rapid technological change, the increasing availability of sophisticated, scalable tools and the sponsorship of organized criminal gangs and nation states.”
In a survey of customers, the creditor said 72% of organizations perceived a rise in cyber risk and one-third of polled internet traffic was deemed to be the work of malicious botnet behavior.
In short, threat actors have managed to leverage AI platforms to become more efficient and operate at a scale that goes beyond that of many governments.
“As the world has become more reliant on technology, and systems more interconnected and interdependent, so the attack surface available to bad actors is expanding and the opportunities to exploit vulnerabilities have multiplied,” Mastercard said.
“The internet of things, 5G technology, supply chain complexity and increased digital consumer engagement have all contributed.”
Part of the problem, said Mastercard researchers, is the rise in AI as a useful tool in cybercrime. By automating the use of AI scripts and learning models for phishing and cyberfraud activities, criminals can streamline their scams.
Cybercrime-as-a-service has become the most popular means of hacking activity, accounting for 57 percent of the threats detected by Mastercard. That is a 17% increase on the previous year.
Additionally, the employment of AI can make it difficult for law enforcement to identify criminal groups and differentiate between criminal operations that utilize the same AI systems to create phishing lures.
“The anonymity of cyberspace and geopolitical fragmentation make it hard for law enforcement to trace and prosecute cybercriminals, especially when they operate across international borders,” the researchers noted.
“Tools can target victims anywhere in the world and easily be scaled to increase returns.”
