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Cyber crime is criminal activity via the Internet that costs businesses and individuals billions of dollars each year in lost property and damage repair - and sometimes in reputation damage. Data theft, phishing, spam, denial of service attacks and other cyber issues are commonplace today. It's not just hackers responsible for these crimes either; it's estimated that displaced workers were the biggest threat to sensitive information on the network. This week's articles focus on the continuing threat of cyber crime.

According to an overwhelming 77 percent of IT security experts in a recent survey, cyber crime will become a high or very high risk over the next 12 to 24 months. (Item #1) Although insiders have always posed a threat to information security, a recent report warns that the global recession is putting vital information at greater risk than ever before. (Item #2) Online scammers have been going into overdrive with phishing and other online schemes aimed at people confused about the banking consolidation or who are desperate because of a layoff or foreclosure. (Item #3)

There is growing evidence that organized crime groups or mafias are exploiting the new opportunities offered by the Internet. (Item #4) Computers and the Internet have made the criminal a better criminal, and while the law, again, is catching up, police don't have nearly enough resources and expertise to catch crooks to any meaningful extent. (Item #5) In recent years, the FBI has built a whole new set of technological and investigative capabilities and partnerships-so they're as comfortable chasing outlaws in cyberspace as we are down back alleys and across continents. (Item #6)

As always, we look forward to hearing about your concerns with regards to business continuity. If you have a topic you'd like to see covered, please email me at [email protected]

Best Regards,

Bob Mellinger
President
Attainium Corp

Quote of the Week

"It's the first time ever that organized crime
can attack people in their own homes sitting at their computer systems."
- Tony Neate -

Articles

1. Cyber Crime: The 2009 Mega Threat
The selection of cyber crime as the mega trend most likely to be a high or very high risk in the next 12 to 24 months can be partly based on the fact that 92 percent of respondents in our study reported that their companies have had a cyber attack. The biggest security risk associated with cyber crime is that such an attack will cause a business interruption followed by the theft of customer and employee data.
http://www.csoonline.com/article/470968/Cyber_Crime_The_Mega_Threat

2. Laid off employees turning to cyber crime
In what appears to be a growing trend, displaced employees are turning to cybercrime using their corporate data access to steal, exploit and damage information networks, and may have cost businesses as much as $1 trillion globally according to a new study from McAfee and Purdue University's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/laid_off_employees_turning_to.php

3. Fighting cybercrime in an economic downturn
There are direct correlations between targeted cyber attacks on consumers and the stock market decline over the past few months. Consumers are being scammed in a variety of ways. People are receiving phishing e-mails asking them to provide their bank account information so as to avoid having their bank account closed in a merger. They provide their bank information and their account balance is plundered.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10119287-83.html

4. Organized Crime and Cyber-Crime: Implications for Business
The dark side of the Internet involves not only fraud and theft, pervasive pornography and pedophile rings, but also drug trafficking and criminal organizations that are more concerned about exploitation than the kind of disruption that is the focus of the intruder community. In the virtual world, as in the real world, most criminal activities are initiated by individuals or small groups and can best be understood as "disorganized crime."
http://www.cert.org/archive/pdf/cybercrime-business.pdf

5. Cyber-Crime: Law Enforcement Must Keep Pace with Tech-Savvy Criminals
According to the 2007 Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) report, 206,884 complaints were filed online for an estimated $239 million loss. However, keep in mind that experts agree that only 1 in 7 cyber-crimes are reported to the authorities or to sites such as IC3. The accurate cyber-crime figures, then, are roughly seven times higher. Yet cyber-crime is an offense that most experts agree has just begun stirring - criminals are getting smarter and better equipped, which forecasts even gloomier days to come.
http://www.govtech.com/dc/articles/575223

6. Computer Intrusions
Every day, criminals are invading countless homes and offices across the nation-not by breaking down windows and doors, but by breaking into laptops, personal computers, and wireless devices via hacks and bits of malicious code.
http://www.fbi.gov/cyberinvest/computer_intrusions.htm