A new study by the University of Cambridge and the University of Strathclyde suggests that preventive approaches to fighting cybercrime are far more promising than reactionary measures.
The researchers found that arresting people who used “booter services” to carry out denial of service (DoS) attacks only resulted in short-terms drops in attacks of this kind, while sentencing had no measurable effects at all. Law enforcement operations to take down infrastructure related to booter services were found to have a more disruptive effect on the number of attacks and the maturity of the underground market for these kinds of services. However, the most effective method involved using ad campaigns to target young people who searched for booter services online. The ads, which informed users that such services are illegal, “appeared to dramatically decrease the numbers of new people getting involved” in cybercrime, according to the paper’s first author Ben Collier.
Read more: Prevention better than cure at preventing young users from getting involved in cybercrime