Digital Crime in the Netherlands doubled from 2019 to 2020.

The police registered many more digital crimes in 2020 than the year before.The police notice significantly more cases of fraud via WhatsApp. For example, someone pretends to be a daughter who asks her mother to deposit a sum of money for tuition fees that suddenly have to be paid. A hack makes it impossible to see from the phone number or profile picture that it is a fraudster. The police also see more fraud with online trade, where you buy goods, but never receive them.Real cybercrime is on the rise, says Theo van der Plas, director of digitization and cybercrime at the National Police.

Criminals who used to be involved in traditional things like drug dealing and burglaries are shifting their field of activity to the Internet. You can buy all the necessities for setting up WhatsApp fraud as a package. And ransomware is being offered for sale. This makes it possible to remotely hold a computer or an entire network hostage by stealing data and only return it after paying a ransom to the hackers. This happened to the municipality of Hof van Twente last year.Wouter Stol, professor of cyber security, recognizes the results. 'You can barely do your banking without the Internet anymore. We do our shopping digitally. It's logical that criminals move from an old model to a new one.' Stol also worked as a police chief, at the time when computers became accessible to everyone and made their appearance in police stations.These hacks are now for sale as a package: software to set up a fake web store. Or a page that pretends to be the login page of a bank, but is not. Here too a network of people offer account numbers and methods for money laundering. Such a web store can be off the air after 24 hours, making detection difficult.Because these packages have an understandable interface, you do not need to be an IT expert to commit digital crimes. Although the police increasingly have to be, says Wouter Stol. More knowledge is needed in order to keep up with the criminals. A few national specialists will no longer suffice. Stol sees the police becoming increasingly digital - although such a change in an organization employing over 60,000 people won't happen quickly.Both Van der Plas and Stol stress something else: citizens, companies and government institutions must become more aware of the dangers on the Internet. They must check more carefully whether what they do there is correct and secure. We are so accustomed to making purchases in a few clicks, and having a bank virtually talk back as if it were someone we know, that a mistake is quickly made. Often something that seems too good to be true really is. Van der Plas: 'If a game is sold out everywhere in no time, but is offered for sale on an unknown website, something is probably not right.'Want to ensure secure browsing? Check this out!Source