Cybercrime: Understanding the Threats Facing Your Business

Cybercrime has become the fastest-growing category of criminal activity in the world, and its impact on businesses is staggering. According to IBM's Cost of a Data Breach Report, the average cost of a data breach reached $4.45 million in 2023, a figure that continues to climb year after year. For small and medium-sized businesses in Raleigh, Durham, and the Research Triangle, the consequences of cybercrime can be existential. A single ransomware attack, business email compromise, or data breach can destroy years of hard work, erode customer trust, and drain financial reserves. Understanding the nature of cybercrime is the first step toward defending against it.

Petronella Technology Group has spent more than two decades helping Triangle businesses protect themselves from cybercriminals. Our team has investigated hundreds of cybercrime incidents, from sophisticated nation-state attacks to opportunistic phishing campaigns. We understand how cybercriminals think, how they operate, and most importantly, how to stop them. Our approach combines proactive defense through our 39-layer ZeroHack Cyber Safety Stack with rapid incident response and expert digital forensics capabilities.

The Current Cybercrime Landscape

The cybercrime ecosystem has evolved dramatically in recent years. What was once the domain of lone hackers and small criminal groups has become a highly organized, professionalized industry. The Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report consistently documents the increasing sophistication and scale of cyberattacks. Today's cybercriminals operate with the efficiency of legitimate businesses, complete with customer support, research and development teams, and affiliate programs.

Several key trends are shaping the current threat landscape:

Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS): The ransomware economy has been transformed by the emergence of RaaS platforms that allow even technically unsophisticated criminals to launch devastating attacks. Groups like LockBit, BlackCat, and Royal develop the malware and infrastructure, then recruit affiliates to deploy it against targets. The affiliate model has dramatically increased the volume and variety of ransomware attacks, and no organization is too small to be a target.

Business Email Compromise (BEC): BEC attacks represent one of the most financially damaging forms of cybercrime. According to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, BEC losses exceeded $2.7 billion in a single year. These attacks use social engineering to trick employees into transferring funds, sharing sensitive data, or changing payment routing information. They are difficult to detect because they often do not involve malware, relying instead on compromised or spoofed email accounts and carefully researched social engineering tactics.

Supply Chain Attacks: Attackers are increasingly targeting the software supply chain to compromise multiple victims through a single breach. The SolarWinds attack demonstrated how a compromise of a widely used software vendor could give attackers access to thousands of organizations, including government agencies and Fortune 500 companies. For Triangle businesses that rely on third-party software and cloud services, supply chain risk is a growing concern.

Credential Theft and Account Takeover: Stolen credentials remain the most common initial access vector for cyberattacks. The Verizon DBIR reports that stolen credentials are involved in nearly half of all data breaches. Attackers obtain credentials through phishing, credential stuffing using passwords leaked in previous breaches, and information-stealing malware. Once they have valid credentials, they can access systems and data without triggering traditional security alerts.

AI-Powered Attacks: Cybercriminals are increasingly using artificial intelligence to make their attacks more convincing and harder to detect. AI-generated phishing emails are more grammatically correct and contextually relevant than traditional phishing attempts. Deepfake audio and video technology has been used to impersonate executives in BEC attacks. As AI tools become more accessible, the sophistication gap between attackers and defenders continues to narrow.

Types of Cybercrime Targeting Triangle Businesses

Ransomware Attacks

Ransomware remains the most disruptive form of cybercrime for businesses of all sizes. Modern ransomware attacks follow a sophisticated playbook that typically begins with initial access through phishing or exploitation of a public-facing vulnerability. The attacker then spends days or weeks inside the network, mapping the environment, disabling backups, and exfiltrating sensitive data before deploying the encryption payload. This double extortion technique means that even organizations with good backups face the threat of having their stolen data published or sold on the dark web.

The impact on Triangle businesses has been severe. Healthcare organizations, law firms, manufacturing companies, and local government agencies have all been victimized by ransomware in recent years. Recovery costs typically far exceed the ransom demand itself, encompassing system rebuilding, lost productivity, legal expenses, regulatory penalties, and reputational damage.

Phishing and Social Engineering

Phishing remains the most common initial access vector for cyberattacks. CISA reports that more than 90 percent of successful cyberattacks begin with a phishing email. Modern phishing campaigns are highly targeted, using information gathered from social media and public records to craft convincing messages that trick recipients into clicking malicious links, opening infected attachments, or entering credentials on fake login pages.

Spear phishing targets specific individuals within an organization, often executives or employees with access to financial systems. Whaling attacks specifically target C-suite executives with carefully crafted messages that appear to come from trusted business partners, legal counsel, or government agencies. These targeted attacks are far more difficult to detect than mass-market phishing campaigns.

Data Breaches and Data Theft

Data breaches expose sensitive customer information, employee records, intellectual property, and financial data. For businesses subject to regulatory requirements like HIPAA, PCI DSS, or state data breach notification laws, a breach triggers mandatory notification obligations that can be costly and reputationally damaging. North Carolina's data breach notification law requires organizations to notify affected individuals without unreasonable delay, and failure to comply can result in enforcement action by the state Attorney General.

Wire Fraud and Financial Cybercrime

Wire fraud through business email compromise is one of the most financially devastating forms of cybercrime. Attackers compromise or spoof executive email accounts and send fraudulent wire transfer instructions to employees responsible for financial transactions. These attacks are often timed to coincide with real estate closings, vendor payments, or other large transactions. Once the funds are transferred, they are typically moved through a series of accounts and are extremely difficult to recover.

How Petronella Defends Against Cybercrime

Our approach to cybercrime defense is built on the principle of defense in depth. No single security control can stop every attack, so we layer multiple controls to create a comprehensive security posture that addresses threats at every stage of the attack lifecycle.

Prevention: Our 39-layer ZeroHack Cyber Safety Stack includes advanced endpoint protection, email security, web filtering, network segmentation, and access controls designed to prevent attacks from reaching your systems. We deploy next-generation firewalls, multi-factor authentication, and privileged access management to reduce your attack surface.

Detection: Our AI agent Eve provides 24/7 monitoring of your environment, analyzing network traffic, endpoint telemetry, and log data to identify suspicious activity in real time. Eve uses machine learning to establish behavioral baselines and detect anomalies that traditional signature-based tools miss. Our Security Operations Center monitors alerts and triages incidents around the clock.

Response: When an incident is detected, our team responds immediately to contain the threat and minimize damage. Our incident response process follows a structured methodology aligned with NIST guidelines, ensuring a thorough and forensically sound response. We have the expertise to handle everything from routine malware infections to complex, multi-stage attacks.

Recovery: Our business continuity and disaster recovery planning ensures that your organization can recover quickly from a cybercrime incident. We maintain tested backup and recovery procedures, and our team provides hands-on support throughout the recovery process.

What to Do If You Are a Victim of Cybercrime

If you believe your organization has been targeted by cybercriminals, time is of the essence. The actions you take in the first hours of an incident can significantly impact the outcome. Here is what you should do:

• Do not panic, but act quickly. Contact a cybersecurity professional immediately. Do not attempt to investigate or remediate the issue yourself, as this can destroy critical evidence.
• Isolate affected systems. If possible, disconnect compromised systems from the network to prevent the attack from spreading, but do not power them off, as this can destroy volatile evidence in memory.
• Document everything. Record what you observed, when you observed it, and any actions you have taken. This information will be valuable for the investigation.
• Notify your cyber insurance carrier. Most policies have strict notification requirements. Early notification ensures that you can access the full benefits of your coverage.
• Report the crime. File a report with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov and contact local law enforcement. Reporting helps law enforcement track and prosecute cybercriminals.