THE HAGUE, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The past 12 months have seen a number of unprecedented cyber-attacks in terms of their global scale, impact and rate of spread and these attacks only represent a small sample of the wide array of cyber threats, according to Europol's 2017 Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA) released on Wednesday.
"The global impact of huge cyber security events such as the WannaCry ransomware epidemic has taken the threat from cybercrime to another level," said Europol's Executive Director Rob Wainwright.
According to the director, banks and other major businesses are now targeted on a scale not seen before.
Wainwright admitted that the collective response is still not good enough, despite the succuss achieved by Europol and its partners in policing as well as the success of the Industry in disrupting major criminal syndicates operating online.
"In particular people and companies everywhere must do more to better protect themselves," said the Europol's head.
The IOCTA report, presented during the annual Europol-INTERPOL Cybercrime Conference held in The Hague from Sept. 27-29, highlights important developments in several areas of cybercrime.
The report underlined "some tremendous operational successes" in fighting cyber crimes, namely the takedown of two of the largest Darknet markets, AlphaBay and Hansa, the dismantling of the Avalanche network, and two successful Global Airport Action Days targeting those travelling on fraudulently-purchased airline tickets.
Law enforcement community, public and private partners, as well as company employees and the general public should take more measures to combat the growing threat of cybercrime, said the report.
