How Cybercrime Became a Global Business

Cyber attacks remain a widespread threat to British organizations. The UK Government’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025/26 found that 43% of businesses had identified a breach or attack during the previous 12 months, representing an estimated 612,000 businesses. The figure rose to 69% among large companies. Source: UK Government

The severity of these incidents is also growing. The National Cyber Security Centre handled 204 nationally significant cyber attacks in the year to August 2025, up from 89 during the previous year. A substantial proportion were linked to nation-state actors or highly capable criminal groups. Source: National Cyber Security Centre

Geoff White has investigated these networks throughout his career in media & journalism. The award-winning journalist and broadcaster has reported on technology and crime for the BBC, Channel 4 News and The Sunday Times, covering the Snowden leaks, the TalkTalk cyber attack and cryptocurrency crime. He also co-created and co-presents The Lazarus Heist, a BBC podcast examining North Korea’s cyber operations.

In this exclusive interview with the Champions Speakers Agency, Geoff explains how hacking developed into a global criminal industry, why ransomware groups continue to penetrate major organizations, how attackers and defenders are using AI, and why stolen data has become a valuable currency for criminals and nation states.

Question 1: How have criminal gangs, nation states and hacktivists converged to reshape the modern cyber-threat landscape?

Geoff White: “Hacking has always been a thing with computers. From the very earliest days, there were people who hacked, which originally didn’t necessarily mean criminal behavior. Hacking something together is an engineering term. If all you’ve got is some gaffer tape and some string, you make the engine work. That was the principle behind hacking back in the early days.

“The apple in the Garden of Eden here was money. As soon as websites got started getting set up, like eBay and Amazon, credit cards started flooding onto the web. That’s where you saw organized crime gangs start to get interested in this technology.

“What’s happened has been an evolution. You started to see organized crime gangs get interested in cyber, in hacking. You started to see governments getting interested in this because getting hold of secrets and manipulating other nations, it’s very useful.

“You also started to see lone hackers, what they call hacktivists, the classic kid in a hoodie in a bedroom somewhere. Over time, these movements have moved together. They’ve learned from each other.

“Governments have learned that the tactics used by those bedroom hackers, the activists, can be used very effectively to push other nations around. Organized crime gangs have sometimes got the tools from government hackers, these incredibly powerful cyber tools.

“This coming together of all these different types of groups is the real explanation for why cyber has risen up the agenda.”

Question 2: Why does ransomware continue to cripple major organizations, and which defensive measure offers the strongest protection?

Geoff White: “The thing to realize about ransomware is this is a very mature industry, and it is an industry. There are hundreds of people working in it. It’s been through its start-up phase. It’s been through its seed funding phase and its venture capital phase. It is now a fully-fledged industry.

“The last count I had was 62 different groups I found on the dark web, and they’re extremely strategic. They will say, “Today we are going to target the transport sector,” and they will find companies in the transport sector and work out which ones are vulnerable, which ones are most valuable and which are juicy targets. The next day, “Now we’re going to target pharmaceuticals.”

“They are very strategic in how they work. They will target those organizations until they find a way in. The likelihood is the ransomware gang will get inside your organization.

“The only thing you can do to prevent the damage getting much worse is segmentation. Make sure that, within your organization, if they get into one bit, they can’t get into all the bits. If they break into one department, they can’t hop into other departments.

“Segmentation, breaking things apart and introducing those barriers for the attackers, is your best defense, I believe.”

Question 3: How are cyber criminals currently using AI, and does it give attackers an advantage over defenders?

Geoff White: “Like all industries, the cyber-crime industry is looking very hard at artificial intelligence. Our working practices are gradually being revolutionized by AI. It’s no exception in the cyber-crime space.

“However, there’s some good news here. If you look at how cyber criminals are using AI in practice, I’m not talking about theoreticals, hypotheticals or people on the dark web offering services that we have no idea whether they’re real or not.

“If you look at how cyber criminals are actually using it, it’s the same stuff that we’re using it for. They’re using it to make their emails a bit better. They’re using it to audit their code. They’re using it to do reconnaissance on targets they might want to hit. That’s not reinventing the wheel.

“I would contrast that with what’s happening on the defensive side in cyber. AI has always been used in cyber defense. We used to call it machine learning back in the day. The cyber-defense industry is using AI at scale and at pace.

“I think we’re in a good place. If we can double down on those AI wins in cyber defense now, we can hopefully stave off the day when cyber criminals start to use AI at scale as well.”

Question 4: Why has stolen data become such a valuable and versatile currency for cyber criminals and nation states?

Geoff White: “Cyber criminals have realized over a long period of time that the one thing organizations have that’s easy to get hold of and easy to use as a criminal is data.

“I can get hold of credit cards as a crook if I want to, but then I’ve got to somehow wash the credit card money. I can steal Bitcoin, but then I’ve got to put the Bitcoin somewhere. If I steal data as a criminal, I’ve got an instant win.

“For a start, I can go on the dark web and sell it off. I can contact people, if it’s customer data, and send them phishing emails. I can contact the organization and say, “I’ve got a bunch of your data. Pay me and I won’t leak it.” There are so many different ways data can be used.

“It’s not just at the criminal level. Nation states have started getting involved in this game as well. We’ve seen these massive data leaks. We’ve seen government hackers breaking into organizations, famously the Democratic Party in the 2016 presidential election in the US, stealing incredibly sensitive data and then weaponizing it to do damage.

“Data has become the new currency for cyber-crime gangs in the same way it became the new currency for organizations.”

---

This exclusive interview with Geoff White was conducted by Tabish Ali of the Motivational Speakers Agency.