This session discusses the latest attacks conducted by the big four nation state adversaries from China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, with a strong focus on China-based actors, diving deep into the background of these adversaries, their motivations, and the latest tradecraft they leverage during their daily offensive cyber operations. The speaker will identify state actors, and the agencies they work on behalf of, and shared tactics, techniques, and procedures.

The presentation will then focus on the history of eCrime, the latest attack trends being used by adversaries intent on financial gain, with a strong spotlight on connecting and highlighting the broad, highly interconnected, and interdependent eCrime ecosystem. Long gone are the days when single actors conduct all phases of an attack; modern eCrime leverages elaborate capabilities from enterprising criminals selling their specialized wares.

Lastly, the presentation will demonstrate a distinct association, and blurring of the lines between nation state and eCrime adversaries. In many cases it is not easy to discern the difference between the state actor and a sophisticated criminal, in particular because of intent, but increasingly because of extremely specialized tradecraft. Motivation is gradually more difficult to discern due to this line blurring. The speaker will demonstrate this hypothesis through various anecdotes, trends, and extensive research into the topic.