Cybercrime in Scientific American

My new article for Scientific American explores the rising threat of cybercrime, including the near-term potential for the world’s first “online murder.” By this, I don’t mean streaming a video of someone’s death – as horrific as that is – but rather the remote manipulation of data to assassinate a specifically targeted victim.

The forecast that spurred me to write about this was included in a recent report from Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre. As awful as this internet milestone would be, I’m of the opinion there are considerably bigger threats in store for us due to recent changes in the business models many of these criminals are using.

According to the report, the underground economy has been developing a “Crime-as-a-Service” (CaaS) business model in which skilled specialists create a wide range of products and services. These cover many different forms of criminal activity and are allowing those with few technical resources to readily enter into the world of cybercrime. Unfortunately for most of us, this wasn’t a bar that needed to be lowered.”

Press release: Intelligent Future Cybercrime Article in Scientific American