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The National Crime Agency has outlined the serious and organised crime (SOC) threats facing the UK in its annual National Strategic Assessment. The report highlights how online networks of criminals are increasingly exploiting advances in technology to cause harm across a broad spectrum of offences including cybercrime, fraud, extremism, serious violence, and child sexual abuse.
Although the SOC threat increased at a slower pace in 2024 than in previous years, the NCA highlighted the worrying growth in networks or communities of people, typically young men and boys, who are operating online to share harmful content and extremist or misogynistic rhetoric. These Com networks, which are typically operating on standard online platforms (rather than the darkweb) are increasingly being used to coerce and manipulate victims, typically children, into harming themselves or others.
Reflecting the themes discussed in Europol’s recent Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment report (see The corrosive influence of tech-enabled organised crime), the report discusses the use of generative AI (GenAI) to create partially and fully synthetic child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The NCA expects this trend to significantly increase the overall volume of CSAM available online, which will place an additional burden on law enforcement agencies.
Currently, it is estimated that 67% of fraud reported in the UK is cyber-enabled, but this is likely to increase. GenAI is already being used to enhance the sophistication of fraud attacks and the threat from deepfakes will continue to increase as the creation of this material becomes easier, cheaper and more realistic.
Despite some recent successes, such as the disruption of LockBit and BlackCat, ransomware remains the foremost SOC cyber threat to the UK. Although a similar level of ransomware incidents was reported to NCA in 2024 compared to 2023, the range of approaches has diversified as criminals have adapted their extortion tactics.
The NCA also continues to face the challenge of privacy enhancing technologies, including end-to-end encryption. This is an issue that was highlighted by MI5 Director General Ken McCallum last year (see MI5 chief highlights digital challenges in latest threat update) and one that is currently being played out in the courts after the Home Office demanded the right to access encrypted customer information from Apple under the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA).
NCA Director General Graeme Biggar said, “we need to become more agile to respond to the evolving threat, use the advances in technology and other capabilities to greater effect, and build new partnerships in the UK and globally, including seeking common cause with industry.”
Industry clearly has a critical role in countering the growing and corrosive threat from SOC. This includes helping law enforcement agencies scale up their utilisation of AI to improve capacity and keep pace with criminal adoption of the technology, whilst navigating the ethical, legislative, and procurement challenges that act as a limiting factor on the NCA and its policing partners in this arms race.
