Hacking for hire has emerged as a major cybersecurity threat in the last 15 months, with some criminal groups offering ransomware and phishing as services, according to a new report from ENISA, the European Union’s cybersecurity agency.

Hacker-for-hire groups cater their services to governments but also to businesses and individuals and operate legally in their countries of origin, the report said. “The clients of these companies pay them mostly to conduct cyber espionage operations, get access to advanced offensive cyber capabilities and enjoy plausible deniability,” the authors wrote.