Police to Refocus Cybercrime Investigations

The domestic cybercrime investigators want to pool their resources in the future and focus on promising cases in light of the consistently high challenges in this area of crime. This was stated by the Director of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BK) Andreas Holzer, the head of the Cybercrime Center (C4) in the BK, Klaus Mits, and the head of the C4 investigations, Martin Grasel. In this context, AI presents new challenges but also opportunities.

Cybercrime Report Shows: Investigation Pressure Remains High

The BK representatives presented the "Cyber Crime Report 2024" to journalists. The police report statistics presented last April showed a decrease of 5.4 percent in cybercrime offenses compared to 2023, after years of significant increases. 62,328 cybercrime offenses were reported last year. However, this was due to a certain consolidation of the numbers at a high level and also to a Supreme Court ruling. According to this ruling, withdrawals with foreign ATM cards will no longer be considered data processing misuse (Section 148a of the Criminal Code) but as burglary. Therefore, there were nearly 1,000 fewer reports under Section 148a.

Increase in Individual Crime Categories

In the case of unauthorized access to computer systems (Section 118a), investigators recorded an increase from 1,858 to 1,991 cases, and in the misuse of computer programs and access data from 305 to 496. Cyberbullying remained almost the same with 462 cases compared to 2023, while data damage (Section 126a) saw a decrease from 308 to 241. Mits pointed out that of the 462 reported cyberbullying offenses, 355 were solved. Overall, the clearance rate in the area of cybercrime was 31.7 percent.

The fact that not everything is rosy due to the decline in reports is shown by the number of electronic evidence that had to be evaluated in the Cybercrime Competence Center (C4) and in the state criminal offices: This was 2,075 terabytes last year, representing a massive increase compared to 2023 (1,572 terabytes). Holzer's conclusion: "Priorities must be set, otherwise we will be overwhelmed by the cases." There are already some countries that have developed a kind of triage system and set aside cases with little prospect and/or minor offenses. The BK director pointed out that this is not possible in Austria due to the principle of legality. Law enforcement agencies in this country must pursue criminal acts as soon as they become aware of them.

Prosecution Sometimes Hopeless

"This is not to be understood as criticism of the principle of officiality," Holzer clarified. Considerations are being made with the "judicial side" on how resources can be used as effectively as possible. If, for example, prosecution is hopeless because the suspects live in countries that are uncooperative, the experts believe that the efforts of the investigators should be minimized: "As soon as police cooperation is not given, we can write off a large part of the investigations," said Grasel.

The investigators want to proceed according to the following criteria: Are the investigations meaningful and are the perpetrators within reach? If not, the second interest of the investigators is in disrupting the criminals' business, for example by shutting down their homepages and freezing their criminal assets. The third interest lies in minimizing the damage, for example through prevention and education.

Domestic Crypto Fraudsters

Examples of successful resource deployment last year, according to BK, included LoopX: In this case, the Austrian perpetrators pretended to introduce a new cryptocurrency called LoopX and collected money for the sale of the alleged tokens. After hundreds had invested worldwide, the suspects deleted their online presences and disappeared with the deposits. The investigations ultimately led to six arrests, the seizure of around 750,000 euros in various currencies, as well as two vehicles and a property. Other examples included the Europol-coordinated operation against the Phishing-as-a-Service platform LabHost, the Interpol operation Synergia II, which involved the shutdown of more than 22,000 criminal servers and IP addresses associated with phishing, ransomware, and information theft, as well as Operation Victoria against rip-deal criminals, where IT investigators supported the responsible investigation group of the Vienna State Criminal Police Office.

Grasel confirmed that cybercriminals have gained new opportunities through artificial intelligence (AI): It is easy to harass or even blackmail victims with AI-generated images and videos. Child abuse on the internet is increasingly AI-generated. However, as Grasel clarified: "Even the possession of AI material with depictions of abuse of minors is punishable." Phishing attacks have also become better and more diverse, and fraudulent investment platforms are no longer recognizable as such. This is where prevention work is required.

AI Helps Police

Conversely, the police are beginning to optimize their work processes with AI support. For example, there is a pilot project in the area of the Vienna police where AI helps analyze current situation reports and supports resource planning for special units in combating street crime. The unit leaders receive suggestions on where targeted controls would be sensible. "The hit rate is astonishingly high," said Holzer.

(APA/Red)

This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.