Cybercrime More Lucrative Than Drugs

prostoalex writes "Yahoo is reporting that global cybercrime overtook global drug trafficking in terms of revenue this past year. In related news, only 4% of Internet users can flag 100% of phishing e-mails as fraudulent, and Americans filed 207,000 reports on cybercrime to FBI."

Comments

dotCrime Bubbles

[fembots]

Yeah sure, they'd better party like it is twenty-zero-five, sooner or later they'll run out of idiots like dotcoms ran out of VCs.

Cybercrime requires constant training, otherwise your hacking skills can be out of date in just a few months. On the contrary, a crowbar-trained criminal can still make a living in today's high-tech security world.

I foresee in 5-10 years' time, traditional crimes will go mainstream again as many cyber-criminals will be out of jobs^H^H^H^Hcrimes by then.

Oil

[Seumas]

Yet, I bet both of them combined aren't as lucrative when it comes to funding terrorism as hitting your local gas station for a fill-up.

No new law needed

[dada21]

Cybercrime pisses off U.S. black market businesses because it outsources a huge income potential to other countries.

All kidding aside, I don't personally believe in cybercrime. Some cybercrime victims are merely stupid users, and no law can fix them. Other cybercrimes that do disturb one's property should be covered by laws already in place.

My fear is that defending the cybercrime idea will only help make more wealthy lawyers and give politicians more abusive power.

Re:No new law needed

[dada21]

Yes. If people would learn to provide contracts to protect themselves, we wouldn't need laws to protect them. Time creates intelligence, government takes it away.

I pass on so many contracts daily because the power of contract is now only a corporate priviledge. I won't sign anything without cutting out portions, and often companies won't let me be a customer without accepting their contract. In a market where people's expectations are tied to a contract, I doubt this would happen.

Con men take advantage of people who think they have government to protect them. Guess what? Government protection of your stupidity comes from robbing me of my money. No thanks.

Re:No new law needed

[ScentCone]

I don't personally believe in cybercrime

That's like saying you don't believe in wire fraud, or don't believe in insurance scams. The point is that it's a class of criminal activity that wouldn't exist without the internet. The internet doesn't create those crimes, but those particular crimes couldn't exist without it. Just like cars don't cause auto theft, but without which, it wouldn't happen. Do you believe in the theft of automobiles? I don't need to believe in it - it's real no matter what I label it.

Some cybercrime victims are merely stupid users

Which users are those? Surely you're not suggesting that people, out of stupidity, inadvertantly transfer their life's savings into an offshore bank account owned by the Russian mob? Or do you mean users that are so dumb that they accidentally go online and have expensive electronics shipped to someone they don't know in the Bronx? Maybe it's stupid users that are so dumb that somehow they cause someone else to get a line of credit with their personal info? Obviously that's all BS... only the actions of the Bad Guys can actually leverage someone's ignorance and steal their money or fraudulently use their ID in the commission of a crime. Again: you don't have to believe in those acts... they're happening all around you, and not just because someone's grandma isn't savvy enough to see through a phishing scheme. The fact of her ignorance doesn't cause the guy in Russia using a zombie machine in Korea to send her that fake e-mail and then run off with her cash or reputation. Her igornance is a weakness, just like the glass windows on your house are a weakness that another sort of criminal easily exploits.

My fear is that defending the cybercrime idea will only help make more wealthy lawyers and give politicians more abusive power.

If you're worried about that, then why worry about other compartmentalized flavors of crime? Securities fraud involves some particular methods, practitioners, and types of victims. Enough so that we have a special name for it, even though it's still just basically deceit and theft. If specialized pursuit and prosecution of a certain type of crime is just going to make lawyers rich and politicians abusive, then would you recommend backing off of the guys that ran Enron's investors into the ground because we already have laws against theft and fraud?

We live in a highly specialized civilization, and need to deal with criminal specialists with specilialized laws and enforcement.

So, when I

[GmAz]

SO when I make an MP3 to put on my PDA to listen to at work, is that considered a cyber crime? And technically, what makes a drug a drug? What about perscription, cigarettes, alcohol? Those are all mind altering and bad for you. I also bet its all the druggies out there that are commiting cybercrimes so they can get more money for drugs.

10%

[GigsVT]

I once read that 10% of all trade worldwide is underground, dollar for dollar (or peso for peso or whatever). That's trillions of dollars.

I wonder if aggregate underground economy percentages have increased, or if more traditional underground trade has just moved online.

Inflated numbers

[thinmac]

These numbers are almost certainly very sketchy. They list piracy and stock manipulation as part of the total funds brought in by cybercrime. If they just mean people selling pirated software that's one thing, but if they mean people downloading MP3's, then that's different; nobody makes a dime when someone downloads the newest pop hit off the internet, as much as the record companies would like you to think someone just pocketed $15 of their money.

With the stock manipulation, this is also a pretty nebulous number. Did they include only verified cases of people doing this? What did they consider manipulation? The article is very thin.

Definition of 'cybercrime'

[sielwolf]

cybercrime, which includes corporate espionage, child pornography, stock manipulation, extortion and piracy

That's a pretty open-ended definition. So is old-school white collar insider trading or shenanigans now Cyber-Crime just because they do it from a workstation? It'd be interesting to see just what is a cyber-crime now and how it breaks down into that total 150 billion dollars they just throw out there. Of course such data might pop the balloon of FUD as delicious as this.

Re:Definition of 'cybercrime'

[Firefly1]

Piracy? Piracy?! I think not, sir. Since when was access to a computer a requisite to piracy? Here're some reminders...

Re:min wage

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm, the only year I kept records, I made over $250,000.00. That is more than any of my high school senior classmates made. It was actually more than half of them made combined. I only make about half that now...... but it is all legit.

Re:4% is not measuring what you think it is

[TheRaven64]

The test was also not entirely fair since it only showed images of the emails. For this kind of thing, I always hit view source, and read the headers and the markup before making a decision - and then usually go to the site by typing in the address and logging in manually, rather than clicking on a link.

Re:Curbing malware and cyberthreats

[hobbit]

I particularly liked:

Frankly, things became unmanageable at the point the Internet was made accessible to anybody with a web browser.

Seemingly uttered without a trace of irony!