Everything Europol warned about — Firevault was built to stop.
Europol has just released its most damning assessment yet of cybercrime in the digital age. The IOCTA 2025 report, titled Steal, Deal and Repeat, exposes the industrial-scale exploitation of data by criminal groups. It outlines a fully operational economy where access credentials, session tokens, private files, and even identities are bought, sold, and resold like commodities.
And the numbers are staggering. According to the report, over 26 billion digital files were stolen in 2024 alone. Phishing emails powered by AI now outperform human-written scams, with click-through rates exceeding 54%. Criminals no longer need to break in they simply log in using harvested or purchased access. This is the reality: if your data is online, you are already part of the problem Europol is describing.
Firevault exists to offer a radical alternative one that removes your most valuable information from the internet entirely.
The Criminal Marketplace Runs on Your Data
Today’s cybercriminals don’t behave like lone wolves. They operate like organised businesses. Europol confirms that Initial Access Brokers IABs now wholesale entry to compromised systems. These actors don’t exploit the data themselves. Instead, they sell access rights to others who do: ransomware gangs, fraud networks, or nation-state threat actors.
What makes this even more dangerous is the repeat nature of the trade. Once your data is breached, it enters a marketplace where it can be bought and reused over and over again. The same email address, login token, or PDF file could pass through multiple hands each time used to extract more information, deploy more malware, or engineer more trust-based fraud. Europol is clear: this isn’t a scattergun threat landscape it’s a structured, scalable economy built on repeat exploitation.
AI Makes It Easier for Criminals and Harder for You
One of the most alarming insights from the report is how artificial intelligence has reshaped social engineering. Criminals are now using generative AI tools to write phishing emails that are linguistically sophisticated, hyper-personalised, and disturbingly persuasive. These messages are tailored to your language, industry, and context and they’re working.
Phishing messages crafted by AI are now four times more effective than those written by humans. They’re used to impersonate CEOs, colleagues, lawyers, and even IT staff. Europol also confirms that AI-generated voice deepfakes are increasingly being deployed in live calls, helping criminals bypass identity checks and trick users into granting access to financial systems, file shares, or internal platforms.
This isn’t speculation. These tactics are already in play. And they are working on individuals and businesses every single day.
Encryption Isn’t Saving You — It’s Helping Them
There’s a dangerous misconception that encryption is the ultimate shield. But Europol’s report reveals a darker truth: end-to-end encryption is now routinely used by criminals to conduct business in secrecy.
Encrypted messaging apps have become operational hubs for ransomware negotiations, data sales, phishing kit subscriptions, and child exploitation material. These platforms once heralded as privacy breakthroughs now serve as encrypted black markets where law enforcement can’t see in, and attackers can communicate with total confidence.
What you see as security, they use as cover. This is why Firevault doesn’t rely on networked encryption. We don’t just hide your data — we remove it from the online environment altogether.
Cloud Syncing. Always connected Is a Criminal’s Dream Come True
Europol is unequivocal: the cloud has become the weakest link in the security chain. Always-on syncing, browser auto-fill, and automatic backup services may feel convenient, but they create a perfect storm for criminals using infostealers malware designed to quietly collect every piece of data you store or access.
Once these tools are installed, even briefly, they can harvest crypto wallets, scanned IDs, PDF contracts, financial spreadsheets, private recordings, and browser-stored passwords. The data is then uploaded to dark web marketplaces where it is sold — often in bulk to buyers who use it for blackmail, fraud, or extortion.
And because most victims don’t realise they’ve been compromised, these same files are often resynced, re-indexed, and re-exploited, making the cycle of exposure endless.
Online Storage has sadly become the target
Even businesses with robust IT policies are exposed. Europol highlights how attackers are now exploiting browser cookies to bypass two-factor authentication, using AI-generated resumes to get hired into trusted roles, and launching malware directly through fake “support” pop-ups on legitimate websites.
Insider threats have surged. Attackers aren’t just breaching systems from the outside they’re applying for jobs inside companies and compromising them from within.
This is why Firevault doesn’t rely on firewalls, monitoring tools, or patch cycles. We remove your most sensitive data from the equation entirely. If it doesn’t exist in the cloud, it can’t be infected, hijacked, or exploited. It becomes invisible.
Firevault: Goes offline against the threats EUROPOL highlight
Where most digital security solutions try to outsmart attackers, Firevault takes a different approach: we remove your data from the battlefield.
Firevault is the world’s first fully offline, identity-locked vault designed specifically for high-value digital assets. Your files are stored physically, disconnected from the internet, with no interface, no cloud layer, and no metadata trail. Only you — and those you trust can unlock it using identity verification and physical control.
There are no IP addresses. No login screens. No packets to sniff. No endpoints to exploit.
Nothing to breach — because nothing is online.
If You’re Online, You’re Already Exposed
Europol’s report should serve as a final wake-up call. It confirms what many already suspect: the online world is no longer secure by default. Every new tool from single sign-on to AI-enhanced platforms increases your exposure. Every new device expands your attack surface.
And if you’re still syncing your most valuable data — ID documents, crypto wallets, legal contracts, unreleased projects you’re gambling with the assumption that no one has noticed. But the truth is, the criminals noticed years ago. And they’re already trading access to people just like you.
Firevault Is the Exit Ramp
Firevault isn’t a feature. It’s a decision. It’s the point where you stop pretending you’re invisible just because you’ve got a password, and instead choose to become truly unreachable.
We don’t just offer encryption. We offer removal from the criminal supply chain. Your most sensitive data doesn’t just become secure it becomes inaccessible to everyone but you.
Create Your Vault. Disconnect to Protect.
If you’re ready to break the cycle of Steal. Deal. Repeat. — Firevault is the only way out.
