Content material warning: Due to the character of among the actions we found, this collection of articles incorporates content material that some readers might discover upsetting. This contains profanity and references to medicine, drug habit, playing, pornography, violence, arson, and intercourse work. These references are textual solely and don’t embody pictures or movies.
Having explored the ‘authentic’ and not-so-legitimate enterprise pursuits that risk actors are discussing on prison boards, we’ve arrived on the concluding chapter of our collection. Right here, we’ll talk about the implications and alternatives that these actions current.
As we’ve famous all through this collection, risk actors diversifying into different industries and prison actions can have troubling penalties. It might make disrupting these risk actors tougher, notably in the case of seizing property, and may make investigations – ‘following the cash’ – extra complicated. Furthermore, it may well enhance risk actors’ wealth, energy, and affect, which once more can complicate investigations. And it implies that their crimes can have an effect on extra victims, straight or not directly.
Within the cybersecurity trade, we generally deal with cybercrime as being in a silo – to think about it a definite, specialist, and remoted exercise, restricted to the digital world of networks and hosts. Not unreasonably, our efforts are usually targeted on the ‘cyber kill chain’; typical risk intelligence; and bolstering protections, safety consciousness, and different preventative measures. And within the wake of assaults, our consideration often goes to the victims – whether or not these are organizations coping with incidents, or people who’ve been scammed.
In the meantime, the perpetrators slip again into the shadows, and we don’t sometimes take into consideration what they do as soon as an assault is over, or the place the cash goes. This query has not traditionally been prioritized by safety researchers.
However maybe we should always spend extra time trying into how cybercriminals are utilizing and investing their income. Doing so can result in extra investigative and intelligence alternatives round attribution, motivation, connections, and extra.
Furthermore, among the actions we’ve uncovered on this collection strongly counsel that we should always not put risk actors on any form of pedestal. They aren’t simply cybercriminals – they’re criminals, full cease. They shouldn’t be glorified, or celebrated, or portrayed as something besides what they’re: individuals who earn cash on the expense of victims. Our investigation means that no less than some risk actors are engaged in exploitative, dangerous, and unlawful actions, each on-line and in the actual world, from which they’re actively profiting.
Proactive intelligence-gathering and investigation on the boundaries of authentic and illegitimate earnings, and of cybercrime and real-world crime/enterprise, might assist hit risk actors the place it actually hurts – their cash. Whereas we don’t declare that this is able to be simple to perform, the knowledge we’ve shared on this collection might be a helpful first step in laying the foundations for future efforts and analysis on this vein.
Attribution and investigative avenues
As proven in our earlier articles, the schemes and programs which risk actors define intimately on prison boards – generally accompanied by screenshots, images, and particular biographical info – can present investigative and attribution alternatives which have beforehand been underexplored. These might be notably helpful on prison boards, the place individuals are sometimes nameless.
For example, through the course of our investigation, we famous risk actors revealing the next info of their discussions of ‘authorized enterprise’:
- References to the areas (nations/areas/cities) in they reside and/or function
- Different biographical info, together with age, marital standing, and whether or not they had youngsters
- Unredacted or partially redacted screenshots revealing profile photos, names, addresses, and reference numbers
- Images of areas, which might probably be recognized by way of open-source investigation
- References to particular quantities of cash and purchases, generally accompanied by dates and instances
- References to earlier convictions, which might be used for doable identification
- Detailed discussions of authorized or unlawful schemes and actions
- Particulars of recommendation obtained from attorneys, accountants, and associates.
Understanding thine enemy
Our investigation additionally demonstrates the breadth and depth of data that risk actors possess about numerous industries, loopholes, laws, investigative methods, and laws in numerous territories and nations – in addition to what they find out about cash laundering and legitimizing methods. All of this could present investigators with helpful details about what risk actors know and what they don’t, which might help to tell future operations. It additionally supplies a broader view of the risk panorama, and the way the cyber model of that panorama interacts and overlaps with risk landscapes in different prison domains – leading to a richer strategic intelligence image.
Alternatives for collaboration
We hope that our analysis might encourage better collaboration between the cybersecurity trade, regulation enforcement, and regulators, as a result of it may well assist hyperlink the incidents we take care of and reply to day-after-day, to the real-world offenses, property, and companies which regulation enforcement and regulators have the power, and mandate, to analyze. Once more, we don’t declare that our analysis will remedy this drawback, however we expect it might present some helpful widespread floor to encourage collaboration and information-sharing.
The proof we uncovered – of hyperlinks between carders and drug sellers; risk actors and numerous industries and sectors; and risk actors and real-world prison exercise – signifies that we might probably hyperlink some cybercriminals to the circulation of the ensuing funds into wider economies, whether or not prison or authentic. Whereas this is able to require openness, willingness, and cautious administration, we propose that extra might and ought to be finished to analyze, monitor, and disrupt risk actors utilizing the form of info we’ve mentioned.
Some preliminary sensible strategies:
- Researchers might flag discussions about new strategies of cash laundering, authorized and unlawful investments, insights about risk actor teams (areas, motivations, capabilities, connections, and so on.), and monetary identifiers to factors of contact in regulation enforcement and monetary regulatory our bodies
- Regulation enforcement officers and monetary investigators might share identifiers and indicators from their very own investigations with researchers, to find out if there are hyperlinks to campaigns or particular teams
- Each events might profit from embedding applications specializing in these areas of crossover.
Including to the kill chain?
Whereas that is extra of a theoretical suggestion, it may be value contemplating including two steps to the tip of the kill chain when coping with financially motivated risk actors:
- Cashing out and cash laundering. Financially motivated risk actors wish to notice a revenue and disguise the origin of their funds
- Spending and funding. This step might overlap with the earlier one to some extent, however right here, risk actors are searching for to spend/make investments their illicit beneficial properties, and use them to generate additional revenue, moderately than merely disguising the supply(s)
Each steps could also be helpful additions to the kill chain for 4 causes:
- They’re areas wherein some risk actors may be much less acquainted/succesful, so they might make errors or let slip revealing info, resulting in alternatives for attribution and additional investigation
- They could contain interplay with monetary authorities, a wider monetary ecosystem, and/or regulatory companies, rising alternatives for monitoring and ‘crimson flags’
- These are the factors at which we will harm financially motivated risk actors probably the most – within the pocket – so it is smart to commit no less than some consideration to them
- As mentioned beforehand, these steps supply potential for collaboration, information-sharing, and cooperation with monetary and regulation enforcement authorities.
Caveats and future analysis
Our work on this collection targeted on a collection of prison boards, however boards don’t inform us every little thing there’s to know in regards to the prison ecosystem. Nonetheless, we did select a number of outstanding boards recognized to be frequented by prolific risk actors (together with ransomware associates, preliminary entry brokers, and malware builders), and boards can present a helpful glimpse into an underexplored space.
Finally, although, we solely checked out 5 boards, so our work ought to be thought-about extra of an preliminary exploration than an exhaustive survey.
Linking the crimes and enterprise practices mentioned on this speak to particular incidents, campaigns, and risk actors represents a problem, one past the scope of this work. Nonetheless, we famous that in a number of instances, risk actors didn’t merely hypothesize or present basic particulars, however admitted to particular exercise, generally together with images, areas, and biographical info (though we must also level out that some risk actors might be mendacity or embellishing their claims).
Future analysis on this subject might embody:
- Extra detailed investigations, together with analysis into different boards, marketplaces, Telegram channels, and so on., evaluating the outcomes to ours, and figuring out additional alternatives for attribution, investigation, monitoring, and collaboration
- Exploration of the feasibility of linking particular assaults and campaigns to particular investments and enterprise practices – which can contain collaboration, information-sharing, monetary evaluation, and/or tracing cryptocurrency
- Statistical analysis into the prevalence of assorted crimes/enterprise pursuits, to realize an understanding of that are most typical amongst financially motivated risk actors, and whether or not they differ in response to geography and sort of risk actor (infostealer campaigns versus ransomware, for instance).
Wrapping up
Whereas there has beforehand been analysis into particular strategies of cryptocurrency laundering utilized by cybercriminals (notably ransomware actors), that is, to our information, the primary exploration of so-called ‘authorized enterprise’ discussions on prison boards, which have been round for nearly twenty years on two very outstanding, well-established Russian-language boards, and for a shorter time on others.
These sections have traditionally been missed by researchers, presumably as a result of they don’t seem to comprise a lot of relevance to cybersecurity. We imagine that is an oversight, which our work seeks to handle by highlighting each the strategic and tactical intelligence advantages that exploring and monitoring these sections can deliver.
There may be an in depth variety and plurality of investments, schemes, and enterprise pursuits – each authorized and unlawful – that financially motivated risk actors talk about and develop into concerned in after taking advantage of assaults. We encourage our colleagues within the cybersecurity neighborhood to think about financially motivated cybercrime as an integral a part of a much wider economic system, moderately than a siloed and remoted exercise.
Particularly, we invite colleagues to:
- Take into account the place risk actors are investing and spending their cash after assaults – and whether or not this might present extra context and worth
- Share info with friends, regulation enforcement, and different related companies, reminiscent of monetary regulators; requesting info in return
- The place acceptable, consider cybercrime not as an remoted exercise in and of itself, however as a part of a a lot wider and extra complicated ecosystem linked to different prison networks
- Mirror on, and contribute to, our suggestion of together with extra steps on the cyber kill chain
As we famous earlier, we think about this analysis to be a place to begin. We’re persevering with to look into this subject, and we sit up for sharing extra findings sooner or later.
