Online Crime Busts Are Teaching Hackers How to Avoid Getting Caught

March 23, 2026 – Published on The Wall Street Journal

Global hackers are getting better at drawing lessons from online crime busts to build more resilient operations, posing a dilemma for law-enforcement officials.

The problem, known as tactical exposure, is expected to deepen amid calls by the White House for more aggressive action against cybercrime and a recent wave of takedowns and disruptions of cybercrime networks and platforms.

The FBI and international law enforcement agencies this month have disclosed more than a half-dozen takedowns and disruptions of online criminal networks and platforms, including a massive botnet that sold access to roughly 370,000 different IP addresses over a five-year period to cover up financial crimes and ransomware attacks.

But police and tech companies are also learning from the process, said Grayson North, a principal threat analyst at GuidePoint Security. Enforcers have started shifting away from highly publicized arrests and hardware seizures, in favor of more under-the-radar maneuvers—like sowing tech glitches, friction and distrust into a cybercrime ecosystem, he said

“It’s a bit of a cat-and-mouse game where both sides would prefer to keep their tactics and techniques secret,” North said.

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