Cybercrime Research
An essential piece in the field of cybersecurity is the human element. Humans usually perform advanced attacks, orchestrate and carry on global campaigns, and fuel the underground economy. We believe that understanding the role, behavior, and communication humans play in the area of cybersecurity and cybercrime is crucial in developing new strategies to better defend and combat cybercrime and cyber attacks.
We have conducted research in collaboration with the EconCrime Lab from the University of Montreal (https://www.econcrimelab.com/), Cisco Systems, TrendMicro, Avast Software, and other organizations.
Publications
Šembera, V., Paquet-Clouston, M., Garcia, S., & Erquiaga, M. J. (2021, September). Cybercrime specialization: An exposé of a malicious Android Obfuscation-as-a-Service. In 2021 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW) (pp. 213-226). IEEE.
Valeros, V., & Garcia, S. (2020, September). Growth and commoditization of remote access trojans. In 2020 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW) (pp. 454-462). IEEE.
Valeros, V., Rigaki, M., & Garcia, S. (2019, June). Machete: Dissecting the operations of a cyber espionage group in latin america. In 2019 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW) (pp. 464-473). IEEE.
Cybersecurity Conferences
2021, BlackHat US, "The Mass Effect: How Opportunistic Workers Drift into Cybercrime" by Masarah Paquet-Clouston, Maria Jose Erquiaga, and Sebastian Garcia and Serge-Olivier Paquette
2020, Virus Bulletin, "Growth and Commoditization of Remote Access Trojans" by Veronica Valeros and Sebastian Garcia
2020, Hacklu, "APKatche Me If You Can: Uncovering Obfuscation-as-a-Service for Malicious Android Applications" by Vit Sembera, Masarah Paquet-Clouston, María José Erquiaga, Sebastian Garcia
2020, CERT-EU, "Remote Access Trojans in the Cyber Crime World: Past, Present, and Future" by Veronica Valeros and Sebastian Garcia
2020, Botconf, "Deep Dive into an Obfuscation-as-a-Service for Android Applications" by Masarah Paquet-Clouston, Vit Šembera, Maria Jose Erquiaga, and Sebastian Garcia
2019, VirusBulletin, "Geost botnet. The discovery story of a new Android banking trojan from an OpSec error" by Sebastian Garcia, Maria Jose Erquiaga and Anna Shirokova.