The Hague — Ransomware eclipsed most other forms of cyber crime as online crime surged in 2017, European policing agency Europol said on Wednesday, citing high-profile attacks such as "WannaCry" that reached millions of computers. Europol coordinated several successful cross-border operations against cyber criminals last year. But national authorities urgently need to devote more resources to targeting the developers of hacking tools, the agency’s head said. "The last year has been exceptional, given the size and the type and the range of the attacks that we’ve seen," Europol director Rob Wainwright said, detailing an annual review of Internet crime threats. "Growing sophistication in the cyber crime community", where criminal groups band together to deliver "cyber crime services", is becoming the major engine of growth in online crime undertaken for illegal profit, he said. Ransomware "has eclipsed most other cyber threats … indiscriminately affecting victims across multiple indust...
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