“Adapt or die.” That’s the law driving innovation and growth in all industries—even those you won’t find listed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Just as companies in the transportation, education, and public safety sectors push for new ideas and service offerings to meet demand, so too do those entities seeking to do them harm. Criminals proficient in a specific area offer their tools, expertise, and products to others. The practice has become so commonplace that it even has a name: cybercrime as a service (CaaS).

This business model has made it easier than ever for criminals to launch sophisticated attacks without needing to have high levels of technical experience. This “democratization” of cybercrime poses a serious threat to businesses and governments of all sizes. Let’s review forms CaaS takes and how to protect against the threat.

What Does CaaS Look Like?

Some of the most common types of CaaS include the following:

Phishing

Phishing is the act of contacting someone—whether by email, phone call, text, or direct message—posing as a legitimate business or institution to obtain sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers or banking information. (For example, if you’ve ever received a text message telling you the IRS had trouble processing your tax return and needed your help resolving the issue, that message was a phishing attempt.)

In 2023, over 298,000 phishing complaints were reported to the United States Internet Crime Complaint Center accounting for approximately 34% of all complaints. In 2022, over 300,000 phishing cases were reported to the United States Internet Crime Complaint Center, making it the most common form of cybercrime. Cybercriminals are fueling this rise by selling phishing kits containing everything an aspiring scam artist needs to launch an attack, including prewritten phishing emails, landing pages, and social engineering techniques.

Malware

Malware is a broad category of programming and code designed to infect computers and other electronic systems to damage, disable, or spy—often without the rightful owner noticing. While its purpose is often monetary (i.e., theft of money or abuse of data), it can also be purely malicious or politically motivated.

Ransomware

Ransomware is a type of malware designed to block users from accessing their own data. Once a device is compromised, the attacker takes control, and only by paying a ransom can the user hope to regain access. Groups exist that specialize in the deployment of ransomware, handling communication, and collecting payments.

Botnets

Botnets are networks of compromised devices used to launch further cyberattacks. Cybercriminals grow botnets by infecting as many devices as possible, then either use them for their own purposes or sell them to others.

 

What Can You Do?

No matter your industry or the size of your organization, your IT infrastructure’s cybersecurity is critical. Here are some first steps you can take to safeguard your IT infrastructure:

1. Educate your users and employees about cybersecurity best practices.
   The first line of defense is ensuring your team understands cybersecurity threats and how to protect themselves. Employees should be trained to identify phishing emails, avoid malware, recognize suspicious websites, and report suspicious activity.
2. Implement proper security solutions to monitor networks for suspicious activity. This helps detect attacks before they cause damage.
3. Establish a response plan for responding. This plan should include steps for containing the attack, mitigating the damage, and recovering from the attack.

How Can Skyline Help?

• Security Program Readiness Assessment
  We assess your security framework, network infrastructure, application security, operations, and incident response capabilities. Then, we identify vulnerabilities that could lead to sensitive data loss.
• Vulnerability Management
  We work with you to identify cybersecurity threats through hardware and software asset inventories, vulnerability assessments, and penetration testing. From there, we create and implement a cybersecurity policy based on the CIS Top 20 Critical Controls.
• Firewall Management
  We monitor, manage, patch, and update your firewall to bolster the perimeter defense.
• Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
  We collect, record, and store large volumes of user activity data, providing visibility into user activity. This helps us to detect, investigate, and mitigate cyber threats.
• Managed Detection and Response
  We monitor your networks for anomalous activity 24x7x365.

Staying Ahead of the CaaS Threat

CaaS is a growing threat to organizations of all sizes. As it becomes more sophisticated and affordable, more organizations will likely fall victim to CaaS-driven attacks. To protect against these threats, organizations should educate employees and users about cybersecurity, implement in-depth defense solutions, monitor their networks, and establish a cyberattack response plan in place.

Partner with Skyline to assess your risk, strengthen your defenses, and stay ahead of CaaS-driven threats.