5 reasons Internet crime is worse than ever : Why does Internet crime remain a menace? These five reasons have enabled us to accept it -- but that complacency may not last Ive been fighting Internet crime for more than 20 years. In the old days, the daily malware hot sheet was known as the Dirty Dozen -- because it listed only a dozen malware programs. Today we have literally hundreds of millions of malware programs, thousands of professional hacking organizations, and tens of thousands bit players who steal hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars via the Internet every year. Though we have smarter online users, better detection tools, and a host of legal tools at our disposal, Internet crime is worse than ever. Its been a long time since Ive run into someone who hasnt had his or her life impacted by Internet crime. How did we ever let Internet crime get so big? Why do we let Internet criminals get away with so much that it impacts and threatens nearly every transaction we commit over the Internet? Read on: 1. Internet criminals almost never get caught The world is full of malicious individuals who have no problem skirting rules and laws, as well as taking property that belongs to other people. Bad people exist -- and the Internet is a very low-risk neighborood in which they can run amok. There are tens of thousands of Internet criminals, almost none of whom get caught or prosecuted. If youre an Internet criminal, you have to be especially brazen for a long time -- and make mistakes -- before you get caught. You dont have to be a mastermind or uber hacker. One of the most popular misconceptions is that you have to be hyperintelligent to get away with cyber crime. The exact opposite is true. Most Internet criminals Ive met (and chatted with online) are not particularly smart. They couldnt program a simple notepad application, and they certainly dont have to be as smart as the average defender. They simply lack morals, buy programs from other, smarter programmers, and want to roll the dice and take the risk. But they arent taking any real risk, and thats the central problem: You can get rich without much risk of getting caught. Until this equation changes, we will never see a significant decrease in Internet crime. 2. Indefinite legal jurisdiction Most Internet crime takes place across international borders. Law enforcement agencies are always limited to jurisdictional boundaries. For instance, a city police officer in Billings, Mont., cant easily arrest someone in Miami, Fla. We have federal law enforcement agencies, which reach across city and state boundaries, but they cant easily traverse international boundaries. The FBI cant go to China and arrest someone just because they have legal evidence a crime being committed by a person there. They have to submit a request, which will likely be ignored, to Chinese authorities. But lets not pick on the Chinese. Its not like were going to arrest an American citizen and ship him off to Beijing anytime soon, either, regardless of the evidence. Sometimes law enforcement agencies of one nation work with another nations law enforcement, but these occasions are rare. Plus, the really big ones involved with the majority of the Internet crime, like Russia, China, and the United States, certainly dont cooperate with each other. 3. Lack of legal evidence Another huge impediment to successful convictions is the lack of official, legal evidence. Most courts accept the best representation of evidence recorded during the commission of a crime. But most computer systems -- and many networks in totality -- dont collect any evidence at all, much less evidence that might stand a chance of holding up in court. Im still surprised by the number of computers I investigate that dont, at a minimum, have event logging turned on. Even if more evidence was collected, most of it wouldnt stand up to a decent lawyer, assuming it would even be allowed in court. Collecting and preparing good legal evidence takes planning and commitment. Few organizations have the dedication or expertise. 4. Lack of resources Few victims or victim advocacy groups have the resources, technology, or funding to pursue Internet criminals. I know many people who have lost tens of thousands of dollars to fraudulent transactions, including car sales, stock trades, bank transfers, and so on. Unfortunately, the amount lost usually pales compared to the cost of the resources that would be needed to recover the funds. Many victims are too ashamed of their own gullibility to report the crime. If they do, a report will be taken -- and thats that. Your local enforcement agency isnt about to cross international boundaries to try and to recover your personal money. You can report it to the proper authorities, but rarely will they do anything to recover the damages or prosecute. 5. Cyber crime isnt hurting the economy enough (yet) Lastly, the amount of Internet crime isnt hurting economies enough to raise a global red alert. Sure, Internet crime probably results in the loss of hundreds of millions -- or perhaps several billion -- dollars each year, but that amount of crime has persisted for a long time, well before the Internet. Most of todays Internet crimes are newer versions of crimes and scams that have been occurring for decades before the Internet was around. Take credit card fraud: Retail stores would once look up known fraudulent credit card numbers in little paper books that the credit card vendors handed out. Nigerian scams have been around, via paper letters, phone calls, or faxes, at least since the 1990s. Unfortunately, most Internet crime is seen as a necessary cost of doing business. As long as the majority of transactions are legitimate, the noise will be acceptable. The solution is right in front of us Ive often wondered what it would take for our world to decide to diminish Internet crime substantially. Weve had the means and technology to do so for a long time. We are not waiting for some fantastic new technology. Everything we need we already have, except for global consensus on how to do it and actually enabling the new features. Personally, I think its going to take a huge disaster. A digital catastrophe will happen eventually and bring down much of the Internet for a few days -- or shut down financial markets for a few hours or more. Passive acceptance of Internet crime will no longer be tolerated. Well finally have to do something about it.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 16:38:29 +0000
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