South Africa is a cyber gangster’s paradise
From: Business Day Live
THERE are about 1.5-million victims of cybercrime every day. According to the 2013 Norton Report, the cost suffered by each victim is nearly $300. Though the numbers of individuals attacked has fallen by about 5%, the pain suffered per head has risen 51%.
Prowling through the internet throws up an inexhaustible supply of data. And this was something corporate attorney Dave Loxton says began with “guys hacking for fun and then people started realising they could make fortunes. Suddenly, the whole process changed.”
At the end of July five men (four Russians, one Ukrainian) were charged with the largest cybercrime case in US history. Multinationals such as Visa, 7-Eleven and French retailer Carrefour were among the victims. The scheme targeted the Nasdaq OMX Group along with 800,000 bank accounts held by Citigroup and PNC Financial Services. The men stole 160-million credit card numbers. They encoded data onto the magnetic strips of blank plastic cards and then withdrew money from ATMs and made credit card purchases.
Damages ran into the hundreds of millions. Three companies lost $300m between them. The chairman of Britain’s parliamentary home affairs committee says more can be stolen on the internet than by robbing a bank.
Most of us think of cybercrime as an attack on individuals and institutions to steal money. But, as Edward Snowden, the American computer specialist and Central Intelligence Agency employee and US National Security Agency contractor, has revealed, states steal information from other sovereign states through the use of cybercrime. Espionage by keyboard. No need for James Bonds.
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