The cost of a data breach is simply too high, especially for incidents that are entirely preventable. However, as cybercriminals become more organised, enterprises cannot go to war without a battle plan — and every battle plan requires research.
According to Dmitry Volkov, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Group-IB, many organisations are still operating without direction. As a result, they are unable to prevent or even anticipate the next attack, because they don’t know what to look for or where. Volkov spoke with Frontier Enterprise to shed light on the cybercrime ecosystem and highlight gaps in enterprise defences.
What does the rise of structured, professional cybercrime mean for enterprise security teams?
Cybercrime today functions as a highly professional community with a clear objective: to defeat cybersecurity measures and earn quick money. To stay ahead, enterprise security teams must match that professionalism, with skilled, well-equipped personnel who study and anticipate how cybercriminals evolve.
This requires a strong threat intelligence capability. Without it, you’re effectively operating in the dark. You may see headlines about attacks but you won’t understand how those attacks were carried out or how to shield your organisation against them.
Many organisations still overlook the role of initial access brokers, actors who obtain credentials and sell access on underground marketplaces. This stage is often the true “first step” in an attack. Without visibility into this stage, defences are incomplete. Tracking these brokers and their techniques through threat intelligence is critical.
Companies also underestimate the scale and sophistication of consumer-targeted fraud. Many do not fully grasp how quickly threat actors evolve their techniques, contributing to rising financial losses. Addressing this requires combining threat intelligence with behavioural and traditional antifraud tools to build layered defences that can detect and disrupt these schemes before they succeed.
Are enterprises prepared for AI-driven threats?
Artificial intelligence is a dual-use technology in cybersecurity. While companies are beginning to harness AI for threat detection and automation, cybercriminals are often moving faster, using AI to automate every stage of the attack, including scriptwriting and deepfake-driven phishing campaigns.
These AI-powered threats allow even low-skilled attackers to carry out highly convincing social engineering attacks.
Despite this, enterprise defences remain inconsistent. Many tools are still reactive and signature-based, making them ill-equipped to identify novel, adaptive threats enabled by AI. A gap is emerging between the sophistication of AI-driven attacks and the ability of conventional cybersecurity tools to detect and mitigate them.
How should enterprise security evolve to counter the dark web economy?
The underground cybercrime economy continues to thrive on the sale of stolen credentials, zero-day exploits, and illicit access to corporate systems. In 2024 alone, threat researchers observed thousands of corporate access listings by initial access brokers, along with a surge in the use of underground “clouds of logs” — vast repositories of stolen data made available to attackers at minimal cost.
These services turn compromised data into ready-made attack kits. To counter this, enterprises must move beyond traditional perimeter defences. The next phase of security centres on identity-centric security models that go beyond static credentials, zero-trust frameworks that verify every access attempt, and the use of dark web intelligence to detect and stop threats before they are weaponised.
How are enterprises adapting to ransomware’s evolving extortion playbook?
Enterprises must focus on preventing the final and most damaging stage of a ransomware attack, whether it involves encryption, data theft, regulatory threats, or reputational harm.
Large-scale attacks are multi-stage operations, and organisations have opportunities to detect and interrupt them early. Effective defence depends not only on technology, but also on having the right people and response processes in place.
How should enterprises respond to the blurring of nation-state and financial cybercrime?
The line between politically motivated cyberattacks and financially driven operations is increasingly blurred. In 2024, activity attributed to advanced persistent threats surged by 58%, with many campaigns combining espionage with economic disruption.
This convergence means that enterprises, especially those with a global or regional footprint, must rethink their security strategies, particularly during times of geopolitical tension. In today’s threat landscape, remaining a neutral bystander is no longer viable. Investing in threat intelligence is no longer optional.
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