Why do armed groups turn to cybercrime to raise money? Cybercrime can give these groups new ways to make money when traditional sources of income—such as controlling natural resources or extracting money from local communities—become harder to use. It can also broaden their sources of funding and make conventional sanctions harder to enforce.

A new article from SIS Professor Trey Herr and SIS PhD candidate Ido Levy (also co-authored with Emma Schroeder from the Atlantic Council's Cyber Statecraft Initiative) argues that armed groups are most likely to adopt cyber-enabled fraud when three conditions come together: a major change or disruption creates pressure to find new sources of income; the group has an organizational history that makes involvement in illegal business more acceptable or feasible; and it has access to the technology, networks, or other infrastructure needed to carry out cybercrime. By “adoption,” the authors mean that an armed group is actively involved in cybercrime and earns revenue from it—not simply that cybercriminals happen to operate in territory controlled by the group.

Herr, Schroeder, and Levy develop this argument through a case study of Myanmar’s Karen Border Guard Force (BGF), which partnered with a cybercriminal organization, alongside a limited comparison with Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). Together, these cases help the authors distinguish the broader conditions that create incentives for cybercrime from the organizational factors that enable armed groups to become directly involved in it.

Read the full article here.