Cybercriminals are adopting creative new techniques to target their victims at an unprecedented pace and are constantly seeking methods to avoid law enforcement detection. To stay ahead of them, law enforcement should target cybercriminals offering “off-the-shelf” cyber-attack services or products to make it more difficult for low-level cybercriminals to carry out high-level attacks.

Europol’s fifth annual Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA), presented today at the INTERPOL-Europol Cybercrime Conference in Singapore, offers a unique law enforcement view of the emerging threats and key developments in the field of cybercrime over the last year. But more than that, it describes anticipated future threats and provides recommendations to law enforcement authorities in Europe to adequately deal with these challenges. The report only has one goal in mind: to stop cybercriminals from making you their next victim.

We’ll shed some light on some of the main trends here. A complete overview can be found in the full report on Europol’s website.