Is Cybercrime-as-a-Service the Next Big Threat? How Can Cyber Teams Win Against Hackers for Hire?

As if the threat landscape wasn’t dense enough, cyber teams now have something new to worry about—cybercrime-as-a-service (CCaaS). The cybercrime marketplace now includes hacking via a managed service model. Criminals are following the popular everything-as-a-service era, and it’s becoming more widespread.

Let’s look at the phenomenon, what it takes to win against hackers for hire, and why more than technical prowess is necessary for this new stage of cyber war.

What Is Cybercrime-as-a-Service?

Cybercrime has evolved, as have the motivation and skills of those perpetrating it. It’s a billion-dollar business, with hackers in it for the money and notoriety. Cybercrime is now commoditized, and the barrier to entry has never been lower. These bad actors don’t need technical skills or code-writing abilities. They just have to hire a criminal to launch these hit-and-run assaults.

There’s even a “menu” of sorts to choose from — distributed?denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, phishing, ransomware, malware, and AI-enabled cybercrime services. There’s an open market on the dark web for these offerings, and it’s growing. These hackers for hire even operate like legitimate businesses in many ways, with developers and engineers ready to do nefarious things.

Why Should You Care About Cybercrime-as-a-Service?

Cybersecurity leaders like you always have things to worry about regarding risk. The proliferation of the CCaaS model means increased threats. Through CCaaS, you could face malware attacks, cyber extortion schemes, DDoS downtime, more phishing emails, keyloggers on devices, and more.

Cybercrime cost an estimated $6 trillion in 2021, and data supports that 88% of professional hackers can infiltrate an organization within 12 hours. These numbers will continue to climb as hacking becomes more accessible and less labor-intensive. All the attack strategies, especially phishing, are now scalable to the degree that didn’t exist before when hunting insecurities took months.

The level of sophistication of these attacks is also astounding. Pre-made templates use content encryption, inspection blocking, and URLs hidden in attachments to evade detection. They make spear-phishing even more credible, increasing the likelihood that employees will click.

So, how do you empower your team to be ready for CCaaS? It’s more than technical aptitude and awareness.

Winning Against Hackers for Hire

The type of attacks used in CCaaS isn’t new. What’s changing is the volume of them and the ability for anyone to launch them. It could be a disgruntled employee, a competitor, or criminals looking for an easy payday.

Thwarting these malicious actors and preventing them from causing damage requires a strong and proactive threat posture. Penetration testing is critical to identifying weaknesses and addressing them. Using new tools with AI and machine learning can also fortify your infrastructure. Adapting to a zero-trust architecture is another pivot to make. However, staying alert to CCaaS will require more than advanced technology and strategies.

Your technical team will need to evolve even further, with a focus on people skills. Yes, people skills are the secret weapon in the cyber war. When they don’t exist, your organization is at greater risk because your team only thinks in ones and zeros. They don’t have perspective or understanding and instead, seek comfort in posturing and doing the same thing they’ve been doing.

When technical folks develop soft skills, their technical skills actually get better. That’s because they expand their viewpoints and start to innovate. There are several key things you can do to support this transformation and combat CCaaS effectively:

• Build a culture of communication within your team and with all other stakeholders: Cybersecurity impacts an entire organization. When all groups cooperate and collaborate without barriers, everyone gets in sync around protecting your data and network.
• Encourage mindset shifts: If your cyber professionals can break free from a fixed mindset and push toward an open one, they’ll be more astute at keeping pace in a dynamic field. Openness means they will look toward new opportunities to be secure by design.
• Get in tune with the criminal perspective: Should your team try to understand hackers or those who hire them? Yes, because, much of the time, these people are passionate and relentless in their craft. Awareness of this reframes the narrative and can give cyber professionals an edge in the fight.
• Cultivate an adaptable team: One of the biggest reasons hackers win is that those protecting the goods can’t adapt to a changing environment. They simply can’t grasp changing course, and yet they must, to go up against CCaaS. By helping shape communication skills, mindset shifts, and perspective, you can also plant the seed of adaptability.

CCaaS makes the threat landscape even more massive. Yet, this is an opportunity to transform your people and how they deter and defeat hackers. Use it to get the leg up you need in this costly, continuous war.