Cybercrime Now Worth $105 Billion, Bypasses Drug Trade

Stony Stevenson writes "Citing recent highly publicized corporate data breaches that have beset major companies like Ameritrade, Citigroup, and Bank of America, McAfee CEO David DeWalt, said that cyber-crime has become a US$105 billion business that now surpasses the value of the illegal drug trade worldwide. Despite the increase in government compliance requirements and the proliferation of security tools, companies continue to underestimate the threat from phishing, data loss, and other cyber vulnerabilities, DeWalt said. 'Worldwide data losses now represent US$40 billion in losses to affected companies and individuals each year, DeWalt says. But law enforcement's ability to find, prosecute, and punish criminals in cyberspace has not kept up: "If you rob a 7-11 you'll get a much harsher punishment than if you stole millions online," DeWal remarked. "The cross-border sophistication in tracking and arresting cyber-criminals is just not there."'"

Comments

It is scary. AV coordination is suspicious though

[Erris]

The BBC has a nice write up on how open and inviting the world of cybercrime is. Tools are passed around and improved and auctioned along with the results, according to William Beer, of Symantec. The scene is booming, with almost double the number of new threats in the first six months of 2007 as in the last of 2006.

Arbor Networks is reporting the same boom from the ISP perspective, and thinks the infrastructure of the internet itself is in danger.

Darkreading details some of the sophistication of the attacks, from an IT perspective as reported by MessageLabs.

Hmmm. Symantec, MessageLabs, McAffe, all at once reporting the same thing. Not to downplay the threat, but is a new version of Windows out?