Hacking, sexual exploitation of children and financial fraud are the most worrying trends when it comes to cybercrime in the European Union, Europol has said.
According to the analysis of cybercrime released on Monday by European Police, which also warned that artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an ever-growing role.
Millions of citizens in the European Union are victims of organized cybercrime daily, the European Union’s police authority in The Hague said.
Europol said that criminals are increasingly targeting small and medium-sized companies, which may be less likely to have advanced tools to protect their data from ransomware attacks.
Meanwhile, the agency said users continue to fall victim to phishing campaigns and other forms of financial fraud.
He also added that the number of cases of online sexual extortion targeting vulnerable minors is increasingly alarming.
Europol also sounded the alarm about AI-assisted cybercrime, which is starting to pose a significant challenge to law enforcement authorities more and more.
It noted particular concern for the AI-assisted creation of child sexual abuse materials, as well as AI-enabling sophisticated blackmail methods used by scammers and those looking to groom children.
According to the analysis, deep fake video and audio were also being widely deployed as a cybercrime tool.
For example, voices can be copied for phone calls to extort money or bank access data.
Conclusively, AI is also used to manipulate videos or images showing the sexual abuse of children.
dpa/NAN
