ABSTRACT
Cybercrimes are notoriously hard to track and attribution can be challenging at best. Mr. Glenn Gerstell contended that 2018 represented another year in which the intelligence community had highlighted the gravity of the cyber threat in its annual worldwide threat assessment. The US government has played a leading role in defending against and responding to malicious international cyber activity, whether acting alone or in concert with close allies like the United Kingdom. The private sector is well aware of the seriousness of the cyber threat, and some industries, such as the financial and electronic sector, have invested significant time and resources into shoring up their critical components and networks. Cybercriminals and social engineers continue to replicate themselves and do so very rapidly after gangs are rounded up in large sweeps. Many of the cases brought as part of the 2019 elder fraud sweep, including many of the technical-support fraud cases, allegedly involved transnational criminal organizations.
