Disrupting the Economics of Cyber Crime: TRM's Response to 2023-2030 Australian Cyber Security Strategy

In February 2023, the Australian Government’s Expert Advisory Board for its cyber security strategy released a discussion paper seeking views on how Australia can achieve its vision of becoming the most cyber secure nation by 2030.

The nexus between cyber and financial crime cannot be understated. Cyber criminals are often financially motivated and are constantly finding more sophisticated ways to collect and move their illicit funds. In recent years, virtual assets, which offer decentralized, permissionless, cross border value transfer at the speed of the internet, have increasingly become the payment rails of choice for cyber criminals. Cyber criminals are also using an increasingly sophisticated array of virtual asset-specific technologies and techniques to launder and obfuscate the flow of their illicit funds. 

In our response to the paper, TRM Labs addresses the financial dimension of the fight against cyber security threats, the role of virtual assets, and how Australia can leverage blockchain intelligence to disrupt the funds flows of cyber criminals, through public-private partnerships in the following three areas:

1. Sharing information through international platforms
2. Building blockchain intelligence expertise as part of a broader suite cyber intelligence and forensics capabilities
3. Partnering specialist experts to achieve timely incident response