Europol has warned that the increased demand for data in the dark world of cybercrime is fueling an underground economy based on fraud, ransomware attacks, child exploitation and extortion.
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According to the Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment 2025, published yesterday, the findings are based on information from Europol's own research, the European Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment 2025, as well as input from expert and advisory groups.
The report argues that as the volume of digitally stored data has grown rapidly, data is now the "central commodity" of cybercrime, threatened by the "inadequate digital literacy" of consumers and businesses, but also by the complexity of information infrastructures.
According to the report, data – in the form of access credentials and personally identifiable information (PII) – is a target, a means and a commodity for cybercriminals.
Europol said the data is used for extortion, fraud, unauthorized access to systems, business email compromise (BEC), espionage, and to identify victims in child sexual exploitation (CSE) cases. Data breaches often create a “vicious cycle,” in which credentials give access to accounts, which in turn facilitate new breaches or account takeovers, leading to the disclosure of even more data and credentials.
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According to Europol, data is mainly obtained through known methods: social engineering, information-gathering malware (infostealers), telephone fraud (vishing) and vulnerability exploitation.
Initial Access Brokers (IABs) use these methods to gain access to data, while data traffickers facilitate its sale. A service-oriented underground economy makes this whole system extremely efficient and well-tuned.
Europol has made no recommendations to strengthen corporate security, despite the ever-increasing frequency of data breaches in businesses. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, the number of victims of breaches in American companies reached an astronomical figure of 1.7 billion last year.
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Based on the above, it is clear that the cybercrime economy has evolved into a highly organized and specialized ecosystem, where every link – from initial access to the sale of data – operates with professionalism and targeting. The fact that Europol does not highlight the need to strengthen corporate security is worrying, especially when statistics show that businesses, especially in the US, are at the forefront of attacks.
Source: infosecurity-magazine
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