Do Cyber Criminals Dream of Trusting Relationships?

This threat assessment describes how established personal collaboration relationships, the division of labour and the exchange of goods and services in the criminal environment online supports the very high threat of cyber crime in general and the threat of targeted ransomware attacks in particular.

This mutual exchange of services – known collectively in IT security speak as Crime-as-a-Service (CaaS) –provides criminals with access to services, tools and infrastructure that facilitate cyber attacks, sparing them the effort of developing the means themselves.

The collaboration increases the specialization and effectiveness of the cyber-criminal environment, creating robust and organized supply chains that serve to support cyber attacks, including targeted ransomware attacks. At the same time the trade in specific services contributes to lowering the threshold for who can commit cyber crime.

This threat assessment has the purpose of informing decision-makers on the development of organized cooperation between online criminals and its impact on the very high threat of cyber crime against Danish companies and authorities.