<p>Cybercrime activity is rapidly escalating as attackers continue to explore both established and novel methods to defraud victims of their assets. The “FBI Internet Crime Report 2025” logged more than one million cybercrime complaints for the first time in the agency’s history, with reported losses reaching $20.87 billion, a 26% year-over-year increase.</p>
<p>Yet the enforcement record against those criminals is thin. The U.S. Sentencing Commission’s September 2024 report, “Cyber Technology in Federal Crime,” the most current government analysis available, found that between 2014 and 2021, only 2,590 individuals were federally sentenced for offenses involving hacking, cryptocurrency or dark-web activity.</p>
<p>For CISOs and security teams, that gap has direct implications for how risk is modeled and where defensive investment should be allocated.</p>
<section class=”section main-article-chapter” data-menu-title=”Why most attacks go unpunished”>
<h2 class=”section-title”><i class=”icon” data-icon=”1″></i>Why most attacks go unpunished</h2>
<p>Attackers are well aware of the scanty rates of prosecution and often use that information to their advantage.</p>
<p>”Much of the decision-making around who they target and how is based on whether prosecution would be difficult,” said Ken Bagnall, CEO of cyberdefense company Silent Push. “How they set up and manage the attack also goes through that thought process, as it’s possible to host infrastructure across noncolluding jurisdictions and make it harder for everyone trying to take down the malicious infrastructure.”</p>
<p>Bagnall, whose firm works alongside the FBI, Treasury Department and Europol, called the practice “infrastructure laundering.” Russia-aligned groups, he noted, commonly target Western victims to exploit the resulting jurisdictional gap.</p>
<p>The structural barriers to prosecution compound the picture. The U.S. has <a href=”https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/71600.pdf” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>no extradition treaty</a> with dozens of countries, including Russia and China, and mutual legal assistance requests frequently run too slowly to preserve volatile digital evidence.</p>
<p>”Law enforcement agencies struggled to keep up, hampered by jurisdictional boundaries, global geolocations and the challenges of establishing reliable digital evidence for prosecution,” said Morey Haber, chief security advisor at identity security firm BeyondTrust. “What one nation considers state-sponsored cybercrime, another might view as a legitimate revenue stream for a foreign government.”</p>
<h3>Technical sophistication and operations</h3>
<p>Operational aspects also make it difficult to track down and punish cybercriminals. <a href=”https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/tip/How-to-protect-against-malware-as-a-service”>Malware-as-a-service platforms</a> let affiliates with limited technical skills run sophisticated attacks that are difficult to attribute and prosecute. Additionally, when law enforcement takes down a major group, affiliates often move to alternative methods or start new operations. Breachsense’s annual ransomware <a target=”_blank” href=”https://www.breachsense.com/ransomware-reports/annual-report-2025/” rel=”noopener”>report</a> identified 138 distinct ransomware groups claiming victims in 2025, up from 98 in 2024.</p>
<p>Attackers are also using private forums and enhanced encryption to avoid detection. Europol’s “Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment 2026″ <a target=”_blank” href=”https://www.europol.europa.eu/publications-events/main-reports/iocta-report” rel=”noopener”>documented</a> how criminal markets have migrated from dark web forums to end-to-end encrypted platforms. Each takedown produces successor infrastructure within weeks. The same report identified persistent legal gaps — for example, the absence of mandatory data retention requirements in many jurisdictions can result in evidence disappearing before investigators can act. Another gap is weak <a href=”https://www.techtarget.com/searchcustomerexperience/tip/Ways-to-collect-customer-data-that-keep-you-compliant”>know-your-customer enforcement</a> at peer-to-peer crypto exchanges, enabling funds to move without traceable identities.</p>
<p>Encryption is what ransomware is all about, and when it comes to tracing ransomware proceeds to find attackers, there is no easy path. TRM Labs’ “2026 Crypto Crime Report” <a target=”_blank” href=”https://www.trmlabs.com/reports-and-whitepapers/2026-crypto-crime-report” rel=”noopener”>documented</a> widespread cross-chain laundering designed to frustrate blockchain analytics.</p>
<p>AI has also lowered the skill threshold for launching effective phish
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