An Anatomy of Crypto-Enabled Cybercrimes

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cong, Will; Harvey, Campbell; Rabetti, Daniel; Wu, Zong-Yu
• 署名单位: Cornell University; Fudan University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Duke University; National University of Singapore
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2023.03691
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: blockchain forensics; Cybersecurity; Ransomware; security breach disclosure

摘要

The advent of cryptocurrencies and digital assets holds the promise of improving financial systems by offering cheap, quick, and secure transfer of value. However, it also opens up new payment channels for cybercrimes. Assembling a diverse set of public on- and off-chain, proprietary, and hand-collected data, including attacker-victim negotiations and dark web conversations in Russian, we present an initial anatomy of cryptoenabled cybercrimes, highlighting relevant economic issues and proposing areas for future research. Among others, we find ransomware, as the most dominant organized crypto-enabled cybercrime, entails criminal gangs that operate like firms who adopt modern revenue models and carefully manage their reputations. We suggest that blanket restrictions on cryptocurrency usage may prove counterproductive. Instead, blockchain transparency enables effective forensics for tracking, monitoring, and shutting down dominant cybercriminal organizations, which potentially facilitates a more secure and reliable crypto ecosystem in the longer term.