Cybercrime

Serious and organized crime became more diverse and more harmful in 2025, with drugs, organized immigration crime, and illicit finance all worsening, according to a new report by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA). 

Global financial fraud cost an estimated $442 billion in 2025 and is set to worsen over the next three to five years as artificial intelligence lowers barriers for criminals and scam-center operations spread far beyond Asia, according to INTERPOL’s latest global threat assessment. 

North Korean IT operatives are increasingly using artificial intelligence tools to pose as remote workers, win jobs, and draw salaries from European companies, the Financial Times reported, citing cyber security experts who said the threat is spreading beyond the United States.

Cybercrime victims are increasingly being targeted a second time by fraudsters posing as lawyers, law enforcement officials, and recovery specialists who falsely promise they can retrieve stolen funds.

Medical technology company Stryker was hit by a cyberattack that caused a global outage across its systems, with staff and contractors reporting that the logo of the Iran-linked hacking group Handala appeared on login pages.

The UK on Monday unveiled a new three-year anti-fraud strategy, pledging more than £250 million between 2026 and 2029 to fight the crime, including through steps to disrupt online scams with a new data-sharing platform. 

U.S. banks have stepped up monitoring for potential cyberattacks as the U.S. war in Iran grinds on, while Gulf lenders face fresh questions over their preparedness for cyber activity tied to Iran-aligned hacktivists.

As the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran continues, there’s a bit of split-screen in Iranian online activity at the moment. On the one screen, crypto usage has spiked sharply since the launch of the attacks. On the other, most of Iran’s state-sponsored cyber groups are nowhere to be found. 

Stablecoin issuer Tether said it has frozen about $4.2 billion of its USDT tokens over links to “illicit activity,” with most of the freezes occurring in the past three years, as authorities worldwide intensify efforts to curb crypto-related crime.

Two cryptocurrency exchanges registered in the United Kingdom and marketed as processing more than $1 billion a day were fronted by a purported executive who “doesn’t seem to exist” and was instead portrayed using stock footage, OCCRP reported.