The Future of Cyber Enabled Financial Crime: New Crimes, New Criminals, and Economic Warfare

Abstract

What will the future of cyber-enabled financial crime, perpetrated by either criminals or nation states, look like 10 years from now? In the coming decade, those who engage in cyber-enabled financial crimes (CEFC) will take advantage of a collection of technologies and adjacent practices -- creating new classes of crimes, conditions, and adversary vectors. There are numerous technologies at the forefront of societal evolution, including cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, 5G, physical and digital autonomous systems, the Internet of Things (IoT), Smart Cities, biometric identity, space-based systems, and quantum computing. The combination of changes in these technologies and in society are likely to also include an over-reliance on digital devices, digital payments, monopolized smart systems, and broader technology dependencies. In addition, the nature of financial crimes is expected to change in that they will initially target vulnerable communities, consumers, companies, and cyber computer systems. Furthermore, financial crimes will increasingly be used to enable more advanced and egregious economic warfare opportunities for adversarial nations and nation-state proxies.

Description

Keywords

Cyber Crime, Electronic Warfare

Citation

Johnson, Brian David; Brown, Jason; Massad, Josh; and Owens, Christopher, "The Future of Cyber Enabled Financial Crime: New Crimes, New Criminals, and Economic Warfare" (2022).

DOI