Cryptography at the service of organized crime - a challenge for science and practice

Abstract

Organized crime represents a serious threat to the security, economy, and sometimes for the legal order of the country. Criminal groups not only use the achievements of information and communication technologies (iCT) for the expansion of the organization, communication and management of activities and resources, but also invest, through secret and illegal channels, to develop their own applications of their own applications that they will use for their activities. Organized criminal groups themselves, the most powerful ones, have their iCT experts whose goal is not only to protect communication channels, but also to devise new ways of ?circumventing? and neutralizing police measures and techniques for detecting and monitoring their activities. Members of organized criminal groups to use those communication applications that enable encrypted transmission to electronic devices using the necessary operating system, enabling the installation of the application and the establishment of a connection to the internet in order to enable the necessary protected communication. There are also applications that allow the entire device to be encrypted, making it difficult to find its contents or discover the necessary information and evidence. This paper presents the characteristics of organized crime and their operating modes, with an emphasis on the use of cryptographic techniques. Case studies are illustrating the size and scope of abuse of encryption by organized criminal groups, by data on cases which were processed, as well as challenges in opposing the abuse of cryptography from a technical-technological and legal aspect, after that we provided guideline for improving the mechanisms for reduction of organized crime.