This is the view of Brian Hay, executive director of Cultural Cyber Security which has been retained by the Australian Automotive Dealer Association (AADA) to run a series of webinars over the next year to help dealers understand that nature of the threat they face and what steps they need to take to thwart extortionists.
He told GoAutoNews Premium in an exclusive interview that the international criminals who are the perpetrators of these attacks were now using the massive computing power of artificial intelligence to help them plan, target and execute extortion attacks on companies of all sizes.
“The criminals are so advanced compared to where we are.”
But Mr Hay said that it is a mistake to think that cybercrime is a technical challenge where we can just turn on a button and that will solve all our problems.
He said that the approach to cybersecurity is fundamentally a risk management situation where all personnel within a company with access to the company’s systems can inadvertently (and in some cases deliberately) open IT pathways for criminal gangs to insert malicious code to bring the enterprise to its knees.
“The challenge we have is that how can you manage your risk if you don’t first understand the threat? And that’s the predicament we have found ourselves in today because we continue to meet business leaders and business owners who don’t understand the threat.”
Mr Hay said that for dealers out there today, the organised crime gangs are the biggest threat and the biggest perpetrator of cybercrime.
“The three objectives of organised crime gangs are:
- Number one, make money.
- Number two, don’t get caught.
- Number three, launder your ill-gotten gains.
“Now if you look at those three imperatives of organised crime the first, make money, cybercrime is far more profitable than drugs. A good cyber criminal makes more money than a big drug trafficker.
“In terms of not getting caught, some recent studies have shown that there is minimal risk of getting caught because Cybercrime 101 is that you always target a victim in another country.
“When was the last time an overseas cyber criminal has ever been extradited back to Australia to be held to account for their crimes against our citizens? That would be never. In 20 years it has never happened. So therefore, the risk of them getting caught is virtually zero.
“And the third, money laundering; they all trade in crypto currency and there are over 1000 crypto currencies. Of course, with crypto you can pretty much subvert all the anti-money laundering legislation and regulations and transfer money around the world in different locations.
Brian Hay
“So it is a perfect scenario for them. So when I talk about the dark web, I talk about the greatest aggregated effort of organised crime the world has ever seen. Without question. But nobody appreciates the scale of this,” Mr Hay said.
Asked if, given the computing power now being introduced through AI, is it possible for the criminals to use AI to increase the volume of their penetration, creating an even bigger danger, Mr Hay said:” Absolutely. I have been saying this was going to happen for years.
“So what we know is the criminals have massive data lakes which are huge quantities of data they’ve been amassing for years. These are compromised identities, profiles and compromised passwords. They don’t delete data because they understand data has a value.
“We are at the point that the criminals are able to develop AI that can wash through all that data.
“AI will help them pick the target, identify the best methodology to approach the target, then go in and then identify the best crime to use to go after the target.
“Whether it be ransomware, data extortion, whether it be phishing, whether it be simply access of data for a data breach, they will use AI to identify the crime that they are going to perpetrate.
“So AI picks the target, picks the crime type, picks the methodology, and then actually starts to automate the attack. That’s where we’re heading towards. That’s where they will start to do that based on all of the information they have on us already. What we don’t understand is how much information they have on us, and it’s far more devastating than what we can ever appreciate,” Mr Hay said.
“And then the other side of it. We surrender that data to them every day through social media.
Asked if Australian dealers are alert to the danger, Mr Hay said:” I think there’s still a lot of apathy. That won’t happen to me. Dealers and other businesses say: ‘they are only going after the big fish, they’re not going to worry about me’.
“They are just kidding themselves. They don’t understand the threat. They don’t understand the nature of the criminals who are coming after them.
“If you look at the typical organised crime structure, they have a hierarchy, they have the lieutenants and then they have different specialities of roles and purpose and function. And then they have all the troops on the ground who do all the heavy lifting.
“Cybercrime is exactly the same but you have to multiply it by 1000s of times. It’s on a scale few really, actually understand or comprehend.
“So the truth is, there is a criminal for you, no matter your size, whether you’re large or whether you’re small, and they specialise in those areas.
“And we will continue to see specialisations that will target specific industries. That’s why you’re looking at just recently the big MGM ransomware they hit MGM, and then they hit Caesars, all virtually at the same time. It’s not uncommon to see a series of hospitals get hit all at once.
“Automobile dealers? It’s just a matter of time.”
Footnote: The first webinar, which will be hosted by Brian Hay, is on Friday October 6, 2023 at 10:00am AEDT.
By John Mellor
