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Europol Predicts First Online Murder By End of This Year

Posted by Soulskill on from the need-a-sherlock-to-go-with-watson dept.

An anonymous reader sends this story from The Stack: The world's first "online murder" over an internet-connected device could happen by the end of this year, Europol has warned. Research carried out by the European Union's law enforcement agency has found that governments are not equipped to fight the growing threat of "online murder," as cyber criminals start to exploit internet technologies to target victims physically. The study, which was published last week, analyzed the possible physical dangers linked to cyber criminality and found that a rise in "injury and possible deaths" could be expected as computer hackers launch attacks on critical connected equipment. The assessment particularly referred to a report by IID, a U.S. security firm, which forecast that the world's first murder via a "hacked internet-connected device" would happen by the end of 2014.

4 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. No, lying headline by pjt33 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The first link in the summary is to a news report with the headline "First online murder to happen by the end of 2014, warns Europol". When you read the story, what it actually claims is

    The study, which was published last week, analysed the possible physical dangers linked to cyber criminality and found that a rise in ‘injury and possible deaths’ could be expected as computer hackers launch attacks on critical connected equipment.

    The assessment particularly referred to a report by IID, a US security firm, which forecast that the world’s first murder via a ‘hacked internet-connected device’ would happen by the end of 2014.

    And the reference that it mentions is right here and says

    With more objects being connected to the Internet and the creation of new types of critical infrastructure, we can expect to see (more) targeted attacks on existing and emerging infrastructures, including new forms of blackmailing and extortion schemes (e.g. ransomware for smart cars or smart homes), data theft, physical injury and possible death [188], and new types of botnets.

    No mention of 2014. No assertion that it will happen: just that it might.

    TL;DR: Europol isn't predicting an online murder in 2014. That's just a subeditor who either didn't understand the plain English of the reporter or who chose to outright lie when writing the headline in order to sensationalise it.

    1. Re:No, lying headline by Whibla · · Score: 4, Informative

      Informative? Not so much...

      If you're going to go to all the effort to read the article, you might like to spend the extra 3 seconds to follow the linked reference (quoted in your post as [188]).

      IID ... today issued a midterm report on its cybersecurity predictions for 2014, revealing we are on our way to seeing many of these prognostications become a reality. Last year at this time, IID boldly envisioned that by the end of 2014:

        We will witness the first ever public case of murder via hacked Internet-connected device.

      The article goes on to say:

      There has yet to be a proven case of murder via Internet. However, former Vice President Dick Cheney revealed in October 2013 that he underwent surgery to turn off the wireless function on his pacemaker, to prevent it from being hacked.

      You end with:

      TL;DR: Europol isn't predicting an online murder in 2014. That's just a subeditor who either didn't understand the plain English of the reporter or who chose to outright lie when writing the headline in order to sensationalise it.

      A headline has to be short, and unfortunately in that shortening some information is lost. Sure, it would have been more accurate to say "Europol reports that a security firm predicts the first online murder by the end of this year", but removing the bolded part strikes me as an acceptable precis of (that small section of) the article. Complaining that editors sensationalise headlines in order to encourage people to read the full article is akin to complaining that advertisements are designed solely to get you to buy a product. Well, duh!

      As for lying, you're as guilty as a lie by ommission as they are of any lie by commission.

    2. Re:No, lying headline by pjt33 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I quoted the part of the article where the reporter states that the security firm made that forecast. But as often happens, the headline makes claims which don't match either the truth or the body of the article. It's far from unknown for reporters or opinion writers to get a nasty shock when they see the headline which the subeditor chose to put on their copy.

      If the issue were the length of the headline, a 20% saving could be made and the accuracy improved by rewriting it to "Online attacks could lead to deaths, warns Europol".

  2. Re:Are they saying... by Zorpheus · · Score: 2, Informative

    I don't know about other countries, but in Germany drive-by-wire is not allowed. This became law long ago because they were worried about an electronic failure, not hacking. Though hacking also is a type of electronic failure, so it is actually widely covered by that approach.