Cybercrime as a Service

我的博士项目旨在调查网络犯罪服务。网络犯罪即服务（CaaS）指的是一种经济模式，在这种模式中，技术熟练的参与者提供工具包作为打包服务，可以轻松访问工具和编程框架，这些工具和框架提供了经验不足的不良参与者成功实施网络攻击所需的所有服务。CaaS正在推动网络犯罪组织变得更加灵活和结构化，就像拥有多个角色的IT公司一样，以实现利润最大化并增加服务范围。该模型中提供了多种网络攻击服务，可以从非常有针对性的攻击（如黑客攻击即服务和分布式拒绝服务即服务）到勒索软件和数据即服务)进行扩展。然而，没有一个文献使用的服务列表，文献中研究的服务因作者而异。在攻读博士学位期间，我想回答的主要问题是：(I) CaaS生态系统中最常提供和最成功的服务是什么？（ii）民航处服务未来会如何发展？（iii）在投放CaaS广告的市场中，个人营销广告的主要特征是什么？所有这三个问题将帮助决策者了解如何最好地检测和应对CaaS日益增长的威胁。到目前为止，我对该主题进行了广泛的文献综述，并对CaaS进行了系统的文献综述。本综述从学术文献和灰色文献中对135篇文章进行了专题分析，以调查所研究的服务文章，方法方法以及如何预测CaaS模型在未来的发展。审查表明，该模式的进一步商业化将进一步降低进入网络犯罪领域的门槛，增加攻击的复杂性，提高服务提供商及其生态系统的弹性，这将导致当局更难关闭服务。此外，随着模型变得更容易获得，有组织犯罪集团、国家和非国家行为者等团体也可能使用它们，这可能对网络和物理领域的犯罪活动产生影响。我博士课程的下一步是从新闻报道的角度进一步研究网络犯罪作为一种服务。这将包括对网络安全新闻的调查，看看有什么服务被报道，以及在这些报道中可以注意到什么趋势。这将呈现出不同的一面和不同的利益相关者，他们也关心网络犯罪即服务的问题。由于CaaS生态系统影响了许多部门和许多不同的涉众，在我的系统文献回顾中，缺乏对问题的更全面的描述变得很明显。在这两个项目的对比研究之后，我想进一步探索CaaS“in the wild”，这将包括暗网论坛数据分析，在以后的博士阶段。通过混合方法分析技术，如市场的自然语言处理和服务提供商和客户之间的沟通，以及专题甚至网络研究，可以研究CaaS广告市场中单个营销广告的关键特征。

My PhD project aims to investigate Cybercrime as a Service. Cybercrime as a Service (CaaS) refers to an economic model where a technically skilled actor offers a tool kit as a packaged service with easy access to tools and programming frameworks which provide all of the services a less experienced bad actor needs to carry out a successful cyberattack. CaaS is pushing cybercriminal organisations to be more agile and structured not unlike an IT company with multiple roles in order to maximise the profit and increase the reach of services. There are multiple cyberattack services offered within the model, which can span from very targeted attacks, such as Hacking as a Service and Distributed Denial of Service as a service to Ransomware and Data as a Service. However, there is no one list of services the literature uses and the services studied in the literature differ from author to author. The main questions I would like to answer during my PhD are what are: (i) What services are the most commonly offered and successful within the CaaS ecosystem?(ii) How CaaS may develop in the future?(iii) What are the key characteristics of individual marketing advertisements in marketplaces where CaaS is advertised?All these three questions will help inform decision-makers on how best to detect and counter the growing threat of CaaS.So far, I have conducted an extensive literature review on the topic as well as a Systematic literature review of CaaS. This review thematically analysed 135 articles from both academic and grey literature with a view of investigating the services articles studied, the methodological approach the how the CaaS model is predicted to develop in the future. The review indicates that further commercialisation of the model will further lower the barrier of entry to the cybercrime realm, increase the sophistication of the attacks and increase the resilience of the service providers and their ecosystem which will result in harder shutdowns of services by the authorities. Furthermore, as the model becomes more accessible, groups such as organised crime groups, state and non-state actors may use them as well, which may have implications for criminal activity in both cyber and physical domains.My next steps within the PhD programme are to further investigate Cybercrime as a Service from the perspective of news reports. This will include an investigation of cybersecurity news to see what services are reported there and what trends can be noticed in these reports. This will present a different side and different stakeholders that are also concerned with the problem of Cybercrime as a Service. As the CaaS ecosystem affects many sectors and indeed many different stakeholders, the lack of a more holistic picture of the problem was one that became evident during my systematic literature review. After the comparative study of the two projects, I would like to further explore CaaS "in the wild" which will include dark web forum data analysis, later on during my PhD. By mixed method analysis techniques such as natural language processing of the market and communication amongst the service providers and customers, and thematic or even netnographic study, key characteristics of individual marketing advertisements in marketplaces where CaaS is advertised may be studied.