Jean-Claude Juncker included his goals of fighting cyber-crime in Europe in his recent State of the Union Address. Less than a week later, the European Commission made an announcement that it wants to protect Europeans from the growing threat of cyber-crime and an even rapidly growing threat of the involvement of cryptocurrencies in cyber-attacks.
Juncker said in his address that the EU had made improvements on the cybersecurity front over the past three years, but he feels they still have a long way to go. Implementing newer, more sophisticated tools, and including cryptocurrency payments in money laundering cases, according to him and the EU is the right way to go about it.
Another point of attention in this announcement is the EU’s desire to tackle the issue of ransomware better. Ransomware is the newest and one of the most dangerous bad boys in the world of cybercrime. It locks the users out of their system or their personal files and folders, and the requires the users to pay money in fiat or cryptocurrency to get the encryption key. The number of ransomware attacks over the past three years has gone up by 300%. The European Commission even speculates that this figure could become five-fold between 2013 and 2019.
The announcement by European Commission mentioned that the scope of all kinds of frauds will include cryptocurrency transactions as well. The announcement read:
The EU is not alone in wanting to prevent users and investors from falling prey to cryptocurrency fraud. The United States Government has been working on that front simultaneously. The Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) has been working steadfastly to protect citizens better from cryptocurrency related cybercrimes.
Their main focus is on the practice of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) where the developers raise funds with the help of investors, offering them tokens of their cryptocurrency at cheap prices in return. SEC is investigating the process. It even prevented Protostarr from launching its ICO since it was investigating into the process. Also, the People’s Bank of China made a decision earlier this month to ban ICOs in the country and ordered those who had raised money using this method to return the funds to investors.
While there’s still uncertainty regarding ICOs, most people believe the authorities just need time to understand them better and form rules to protect investors. But cryptocurrency related cybercrime is on the rise, and the European Commission’s announcement reflects that.
Juncker said in his address that the EU had made improvements on the cybersecurity front over the past three years, but he feels they still have a long way to go. Implementing newer, more sophisticated tools, and including cryptocurrency payments in money laundering cases, according to him and the EU is the right way to go about it.
Another point of attention in this announcement is the EU’s desire to tackle the issue of ransomware better. Ransomware is the newest and one of the most dangerous bad boys in the world of cybercrime. It locks the users out of their system or their personal files and folders, and the requires the users to pay money in fiat or cryptocurrency to get the encryption key. The number of ransomware attacks over the past three years has gone up by 300%. The European Commission even speculates that this figure could become five-fold between 2013 and 2019.
The announcement by European Commission mentioned that the scope of all kinds of frauds will include cryptocurrency transactions as well. The announcement read:
The proposed Directive will strengthen the ability of law enforcement authorities to tackle this form of crime by expanding the scope of the offences related to information systems to all payment transactions, including transactions through virtual currencies. The law will also introduce common rules on the level of penalties and clarify the scope of Member States’ jurisdiction in such offences.
The EU is not alone in wanting to prevent users and investors from falling prey to cryptocurrency fraud. The United States Government has been working on that front simultaneously. The Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) has been working steadfastly to protect citizens better from cryptocurrency related cybercrimes.
Their main focus is on the practice of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) where the developers raise funds with the help of investors, offering them tokens of their cryptocurrency at cheap prices in return. SEC is investigating the process. It even prevented Protostarr from launching its ICO since it was investigating into the process. Also, the People’s Bank of China made a decision earlier this month to ban ICOs in the country and ordered those who had raised money using this method to return the funds to investors.
While there’s still uncertainty regarding ICOs, most people believe the authorities just need time to understand them better and form rules to protect investors. But cryptocurrency related cybercrime is on the rise, and the European Commission’s announcement reflects that.