Law Enforcement Forcing Hackers to Regroup

What we don’t know is what the long term impact of this will be.

Law enforcement around the globe has been attacking the attackers. They have been successful, at least to a degree. The problem for the hackers as a result of these attacks is whether they can they trust each other.

Historically, hackers have borrowed from each other and used hacking services to cut down on their “time to market”. But now, they are not sure who to trust. Is this “hacker” that has software that makes my hacking job a lot easier a fed?

Sort of reminds me of the “find the fed” game at Defcon.

What this also means is that, at least for the moment, organized cyber crime groups are trying to reduce their dependence on these tested services. That means that they have to spend more time and money developing software themselves instead of actually hacking us.

And, as CrowdStrike so vividly pointed out last week, writing software is hard. Even for hackers or maybe especially for hackers if they have not had to do that before.

As a result of the cops taking down some of the big malware platforms, hackers are also resorting to less effective or reliable forms of malware.

In addition, it is not like these hackers are professional business people. All of the attention from international law enforcement causes bickering and infighting. This is good for everyone except the crooks. That causes them, potentially, to expose information and people that they should not and even to expose methods of operation. All of which makes law enforcement even more effective.

If hackers don’t know who to trust, at least in some cases they will be paralyzed. All of which is good for us.

What we don’t know is what is going to happen in the long term. Will they figure out how to beat the feds? I am cautiously optimistic that if the feds keep their focus on this they will continue to exert pressure and make it even harder for the hackers.

Lets keep our fingers crossed.

Credit: The Record

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