SCARS™ Special Report: Europol’s 2020 Cybercrime Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA) Europol’s 2020 cybercrime report updates on the latest trends and the current impact of cybercrime within the EU and beyond. Source: EUROPOL So much has changed since Europol published last year’s Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA). The global COVID-19 pandemic that hit every corner of the world forced us to reimagine our societies and reinvent the way we work and live. During the lockdown, we turned to the internet for a sense of normality: shopping, working, and learning online at a scale never seen before.  It is in this new normal that Europol publishes its 7th annual IOCTA. The IOCTA seeks to map the cybercrime threat landscape and understand how law enforcement responds to it. Although the COVID-19 crisis showed us how criminals actively take advantage of society at its most vulnerable, this opportunistic behavior of criminals should not overshadow the overall threat landscape. In many cases, COVID-19 has enhanced existing problems. CROSS-CUTTING CRIME Social engineering and phishing remain an effective threat to enable other types of cybercrime. Criminals use innovative methods to increase the volume and sophistication of their attacks, and inexperienced cybercriminals can carry out [...]