Cybercrime Sees Sharp Increase

[Logan Westbrook]

Cybercrime Sees Sharp Increase

It sounds almost too futuristic to be true, but according to experts, 2008 saw more internet-based crime than the preceding five years combined

Meeting at Davos in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum, a panel of experts, including representatives from Mozilla, McAfee and Microsoft discussed the ways in which internet crime has changed in the last year. According to the panel, internet crime, including fraud and identity theft, are no longer the purview of bedroom-based hackers, but instead of large, well organized criminal gangs; cybercrime has changed from vandalism to 'organized criminality' and that internet theft costs $1 trillion a year.

The panel also expressed concern that the internet was now being used to wage wars, or at least parts of them, citing Russia's denial of service attacks against Georgia as a prime example, an act that had dire consequences for Georgia's infrastructure.

Unfortunately, it would appear that solutions to the threat of cybercrime were not forthcoming, with opinion split over the best way to proceed. Some panelists posited the idea of the creation of a 'World Health Organization' for the internet, while others feared that such a body would have to be almost totalitarian in its control to be effective. Others put forward the idea of fostering the community spirit of the internet, in effect, asking it to police itself.

Regardless of what eventually may or may not happen, it seems that taking extra precautions when shopping online are definitely in order.

Source: BBC [ttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/davos/7862549.stm]




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[Playbahnosh]

Damn! I saw this coming. The lies again, overwhelming. I can see where this is going. It's the same as the last two wars. They are trying to tell us, that there is a need to police the internet, and here comes the Online Patriot Act, but not only for USA, but for the whole world. They are trying to take away the last truly free thing in the world, the Internet, and I bet my head on it, soon enough there will be bureaus and agencies coming out of nowhere claiming authority over the Internet, there will be ridiculous laws enforced upon unsuspecting surfers and everybody will be watched through spy programs and whatnot, because the "terrorists" are on the internet, and good citizens have nothing to hide, right?

Goddamit, I start to hate this world even more...

 

[Reaperman Wompa]

Oh shit...

And you know it's only going to get worse. Crap, I hate that so much, they should make cyber crimes come with more serious jail time, maybe scare off a few from doing it. Gotta be safe, might still get screwed over *sigh*

 

[theultimateend]

The reason cyber crime is growing is because the government has made it fantastically easy to steal someone's identity.

Your social security number should only be able to do one thing, help you get your social security check. If someone steals it that should be the only thing they might be able to do.

However as it stands knowing as little as someone's address and their full name can get you hundreds of credit cards.

I hate to get all "It's the governments fault" but in this particular situation I feel it is. They let it become easy to steal people's identity and have done absolutely nothing to make it difficult.

For instance making it an offense to use someones SSN for identification purposes. That alone would halt much of the problem.

 

[mudshovel]

Some cyber crime is pretty easy to avoid, but...

I have to say something does need to be done...

But I don't like the idea of the internet being controlled by one group...

 

[theultimateend]

Some cyber crime is pretty easy to avoid, but...

I have to say something does need to be done...

But I don't like the idea of the internet being controlled by one group...

I still say if they just stopped making it so easy they wouldn't even have to touch the internet .

I mean damn you drop just one card out of your wallet and I can ruin your entire life in less than 24 hours.

That kind of efficiency is almost too good to not be intentionally overlooked. (Not that they profit from it it just doesn't hurt them outright so they don't care)

 

[mudshovel]

Some cyber crime is pretty easy to avoid, but...

I have to say something does need to be done...

But I don't like the idea of the internet being controlled by one group...

I still say if they just stopped making it so easy they wouldn't even have to touch the internet .

I mean damn you drop just one card out of your wallet and I can ruin your entire life in less than 24 hours.

That kind of efficiency is almost too good to not be intentionally overlooked. (Not that they profit from it it just doesn't hurt them outright so they don't care)

True that.

I will be sure not to drop any of my cards around you then!

 

[fix-the-spade]

Putting China and Russia on their own separate closed networks, that'd help. It's not practical or ethical but it would help.

 

[Playbahnosh]

I still say if they just stopped making it so easy they wouldn't even have to touch the internet .

Exactly. Don't you see? They want to touch the internet, because that is only thing they can't control right now. If they make the people believe that the internet is a hazard to them, the people will ask for an authority to police it. It's reverse psychology. There is two ways to make people do what you want, the first is to force them to do it by coercion, threats or blackmail, the other way is to fool them into thinking that they want to do it. The second one is easier, because then you simply just provide a solution to a problem you created.

Just think about it, up there they created this thing called "terrorist", made them look like a hazard to you, and they used this imaginary thing to threaten you into wanting a "war on terrorism" because they can't do it without public support. "ooh, look the terrorists send you anthrax in the mail, so now we must open the letters and packages you send to protect you, we must tap your phone, put cameras everywhere, check you email and simply control your life because oh the damned terrorists" "We must go and stomp all over another country because they harbor terrorists, and while we are at it, we help them sell their oil to us for free"... the pattern... see it?

I will be sure not to drop any of my cards around you then!

Exactly. Protect yourself, your identity and you'll be safe. If you are foolish enough to believe scammers, scam sites, phisher emails and things like that, and you give your personal details to them, you deserve to be mugged. It's not the internet's fault, that some people are retards or under-educated. The internet has it's own set of unwritten rules, one of them is, that you are on your own out there, so you need to learn to protect yourself. Firewalls and anti-virus programs are a must, and you have to learn to protect your personal info as well, learning to recognize scam sites, phishers...etc, and avoid them. It's not too complicated, but once you know who or what to trust out there, you'll be safe. And you don't need any government agency to police the internet for you...

 

[Blank__]

These aren't fantasies; this is business. Cybercrime is so profitable, like TheUltimateEnd pointed out, how can people refuse? It requires very little to get started, has virtually no risk, and results in almost pure profit. No longer is it rogue "hackers" with an agenda and complicated code of ethics, the crime that prevails now is run by either internet criminals or as online extensions of existing criminal groups (ie, the Russian Mafia, one of the biggest online players). These people have only one objective: To make crap-loads of money.

I did a paper on this a year ago for a computer science course. The IEEE has a lot of papers on the topic, most of which are very insightful, if you have access through your school or whatever to their library [http://www.ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/guesthome.jsp]. Though it brings up a lot of differing views (some outright hostile, Playbahnosh), discussing ways to prevent cybercrime is very important -- the issue cannot be ignored.

 

[theultimateend]

Some cyber crime is pretty easy to avoid, but...

I have to say something does need to be done...

But I don't like the idea of the internet being controlled by one group...

I still say if they just stopped making it so easy they wouldn't even have to touch the internet .

I mean damn you drop just one card out of your wallet and I can ruin your entire life in less than 24 hours.

That kind of efficiency is almost too good to not be intentionally overlooked. (Not that they profit from it it just doesn't hurt them outright so they don't care)

True that.

I will be sure not to drop any of my cards around you then!

Yeah this is a subject I have trouble talking about.

Because if you want to talk about just about ANYTHING ELSE I never go "It's the govnerments fault!" But in the case of cybercrime and identity theft in general I start sounding like one of those crazy homeless guys with the "End of the World" banners on them.

I think my favorite example was when I got sent an active credit card that I hadn't ordered. An ACTIVE credit card was sitting in my unlocked mail box from a company who sent me one without my request.

You shouldn't be able to do that. There should be a law that says "If we make a card and its useable and you don't want it nor did you request it...you can cock punch every last one of us." I might actually send that suggestion to a few senators...

Words like "pirate" and "cyber criminal" are bound to encourage bad behaviour. It's like everyone's fantasy as a ten-year-old come to life.

Have you ever tried pirate cybering? IT's not as glamorous as it might sound...

trust me. Aarrgh.

 

[Playbahnosh]

These aren't fantasies; this is business. Cybercrime is so profitable, like TheUltimateEnd pointed out, how can people refuse? It requires very little to get started, has virtually no risk, and results in almost pure profit. No longer is it rogue "hackers" with an agenda and complicated code of ethics, the crime that prevails now is run by either internet criminals or as online extensions of existing criminal groups (ie, the Russian Mafia, one of the biggest online players). These people have only one objective: To make crap-loads of money.

I did a paper on this a year ago for a computer science course. The IEEE has a lot of papers on the topic, most of which are very insightful, if you have access through your school or whatever to their library [http://www.ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/guesthome.jsp]. Though it brings up a lot of differing views (some outright hostile, Playbahnosh), discussing ways to prevent cybercrime is very important -- the issue cannot be ignored.

So you are saying that I'm hostile, by pointing out obvious things? (if that wasn't your intention, then my apologies) I don't need experts and scientists to know that the internet can be dangerous to the unknowing people. It's all about knowledge, you see. If you don't know what to look for in an e-mail to know it's a scam, if you don't know that absolutely none of the websites or services you are already registered to will ask for your password or credit card number because they "lost it" or whatever, if you don't know that you don't win online lotteries you don't register to (with reply email addresses at free providers like yahoo or hotmail), or that nice African guy in trouble will not use your bank information to send you millions of dollars, then you deserve to be robbed blind. The problem is not the rise of online crime, the problem is that more and more undereducated retards get computers with internet connections. Again, this is all for those whom it may concern. It's not that the criminals get smarter, it's the user base that gets stupider as more and more people join in, who can't tell the difference between the official website of Bank of America and "bankofamerica1187.freewebspace.com".

I mean, it's not rocket science, it's how-to-avoid-getting-robbed-online 101. These so called cyber-criminals have it easy. If all it takes is a website with a company logo to fool people into giving up their money, well, I'll be damned, they have a point. It's business, as you said. I don't agree with criminals of any kind, but if you don't educate yourself in internet security, don't do everything in your power to protect yourself, rather you make it easy for criminal elements to trick you out of your stuff, then don't be surprised if you get robbed or scammed. Take everything with a grain of salt. Remember, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me....

 

[Blank__]

So you are saying that I'm hostile, by pointing out obvious things? (if that wasn't your intention, then my apologies)

Nah, I'm talking about the issue of fixing the cybercrime and allowing police to find and arrest those who commit it, not the issue that dumb people shouldn't be falling prey to phishing scams. I agree that more people are falling for those, as more people and more uneducated people begin using the internet, but there is also a rise in "hardcore" cybercrime that involves massive hacks on TJ Max and other retailers that result in gaining hundreds of thousands of credit cards. Stuff like that needs to be addressed and prevented, even if it means creating an international police force to deal with the offenders.

 

[Playbahnosh]

Stuff like that needs to be addressed and prevented, even if it means creating an international police force to deal with the offenders.

You know what you are saying, right? The article mentioned a WHO for the internet, but "such a body would have to be almost totalitarian in its control to be effective". Think about it, an agency with unlimited power everywhere around the world, with the capacity to investigate, arrest, judge and spy on people, acting on it's own agenda. What could possibly go wrong, right? Even if they had one of those capacities, it would be too much. The Internet is inherently a world wide free channel of communication. I don't think policing the internet is the solution to cyber-crime, quite the opposite. I think education is the key, teaching people how to protect themselves on the internet. Sure, "hardcore" criminals will still be committing stuff against big-wig corporations, but did you know that 128 bit SSL is unbreakable? Not because it's criminal-proof, but it would take such a long time to brake, that essentially it's useless to try. That's just one example. Security companies can construct digital defenses against these kinds of attacks.

Oh, and on the topic of credit cards... don't use them. That's my advice. Mail them back. You'll only get deep into debt using those things anyway.