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Cybercrooks Surpassed Old School Bankrobbers In '09
krebsonsecurity writes "Organized cyber-criminal gangs stole $25 million in the 3rd quarter alone last year, by pilfering the online bank accounts of small to midsized businesses, the FDIC reported last week. In contrast, traditional bank robbers hauled just $9.4 million in 1,184 bank robberies during that same period, according to an analysis of FBI bank crime statistics by krebsonsecurity.com. From that story: 'The federal government sure publishes a lot more information about physical bank robberies than it makes available about online stick-ups. Indeed, the FBI's bank crime stats are extraordinarily detailed. For example, they can tell you that in the 3rd quarter of last year, bank robbers were more likely to hold up their local branch between the hours of 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. on a Wednesday than at any other time or day of the week; they can tell you the number of tear gas and dye packs taken with the loot, the number of security cameras activated, the number of food stamps taken, even what percentage of suspected perpetrators had illegal drug habits at the time of the robberies. About the only thing the stats don't tell you is what brand of jeans the perpetrators were wearing and whether the getaway car had cool vanity plates. What do we get about e-crime statistics from the federal government? One guy from the FDIC giving a speech at the RSA conference."
Since only 3% of all dollars exist as paper money you knew this one was coming. If thieves only robbed the paper money they would be limiting their money pool they steal from.
How long until Comp Sci majors are considered more at-risk to be future criminals than the football team?
When I looked at the numbers, all I could think of was "that wouldn't even come up to a good bonus at Goldman Sachs".
Which ones are the bank robbers again?
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
I suspect the banks do have insurance that covers the loss during a robbery. I also suspect that the small to mid-size businesses don't have insurance that covers someone logging in and emptying their bank accounts, which can sink a small company.
> why do people hack bank accounts?
Because they're too stupid to be investment bankers, or their conscience would bother them...
"Cyber-Crime" has the majority of the benefits of a traditional robbery without many of the downfalls. For those of you who don't know, ATM skimming in the US is even more prevalent and more harmful, and the majority of e-crime originates in OCONUS. The thing is, it is easy to get bank and CC info in the dark underbellies of the internet, the hard part is turning that info into money you can use. That's why large bot-net operators skim large amounts of data, and organize by "value" for example a black card will sell for 150+ $. Usually they try to sell in bulk, to someone else, who then hires a cashier, or someone who can basically "launder" the money back (with various methods, E-gold, offshore gambling, etc), often these cashiers charge over 50 points or more, because that is where the real danger is. The point is, even if you start somehow nabbing or stopping the cashiers, you still have the botnet ops and the real person making the money in the background. Again, most of this being from countries like Russia (stereotypes do exist for a reason sometimes). Want to stop cybercrime? Start making financial institutions at least attempt at having security protocols in place that can stop this sort of thing, and do something to educate and simplify secure computing for the consumer.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
The affected parties are different between the two types of crimes;
Robbing a bank is the equivalent of stealing from the FDIC.
Looting an account is the equivalent of emptying a cash register or wallet.
The "little guy" takes the hit in the latter case, whereas in the former, the direct hit gets absorbed by a larger entity.
Just try to get your money back from PayPal, or a phishing attack, or cloned debit card once to find out how "stuck" you are as the little guy.
reminds me of the "The Stainless Steel Rat" series of books, where the main character explained that robbing banks was a GOOD thing for all of the following reasons:
1) The police has something to do
2) The newspapers have something to write about
3) People get some excitement in their lives
4) The insurance will cover everything
5) He spends the money and puts it back in the economy
So as long as nobody gets hurt, he does everybody a favour.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
$25 million, roughly 100 million all year. Are you kidding? The financial industry extorted hundreds of billions of dollars from the tax payer in 2009. If this is the cybercrime menace we're supposed to be afraid of, I'm not. I'm much more worried about legalized theft by men in suits.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
My guess is that the government doesn't publish the statistics because
No, it's an institutional bias at the FBI that dates back to J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports hugely underestimate white collar crime. Violent crime is tallied based on police reports, regardless of whether anyone is arrested. White collar crime is tallied based on arrests. Scams with large numbers of victims who didn't lose much each don't get tallied at all.
In dollar volume, white collar fraud dwarfs all other categories. Losses from the Madoff scam, or the Enron scam, were each greater than an entire century or so of physical bank robberies.
Robbery is a dying industry, anyway. Breaking into houses is almost obsolete. What's worth stealing? Nobody has silver any more. Used consumer electronics has zero to negative value. Any TV worth stealing is too big to lift. Used furniture is nearly worthless. Few people keep much cash around. Auto theft is at a 20-year low - between OnStar and LoJack, stealing cars as a career doesn't work for long.