A new report from Trend Micro maps online groups engaged in hacktivism. Hacktivists have traditionally been compared to digital graffiti artists whose actions against companies and organizations were largely symbolic. Cybercrime was not the primary motive for these groups; their attacks were driven by ideology. Recently, however, there has been a shift: criminal elements have grown, and traditional criminal tactics are increasingly used to finance their activities.
“Today these groups can be likened to urban gangs,” says Martin Fribrock, Country Manager at Trend Micro. There is a rise in criminal behavior within hacktivist groups, and at the same time they are becoming more skilled hackers. Although these groups are often small, they are now more capable than before of carrying out larger or more sophisticated attacks.
When hacktivism and cybercrime overlap
The clearest connection between hacktivism and criminal cyber activity is ransomware attacks. Today’s hacktivist groups are increasingly carrying out “hack-and-leak” operations: compromising servers and networks to steal data, then publishing it on file-sharing platforms.
What makes hacktivists especially challenging for organizations is unpredictability. They may strike for political, ideological, financial reasons—or sometimes seemingly for no clear reason at all. Organizations that believe they have no political exposure can still be targeted. As transient actors in the threat landscape, these groups add additional layers of uncertainty and risk to current security challenges.
My practical recommendations for organizations concerned about hacktivists are to focus on protection against distributed denial-of-service attacks, adopt Cyber Risk Exposure Management (CREM) tools, and maintain a rigorous patching regime, says Martin Fribrock. It may sound repetitive, but the importance of continuous patching cannot be overstated.
For more information, read the full report here: https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/se/security/news/cybercrime-and-digital-threats/understanding-hacktivists-the-overlap-of-ideology-and-cybercrime