Report Finds Cybercriminals Winning In Losing Economy

Dec 22, 2008 12:44 PM

Amid the global downturn in the economy, cybercrminals appear to be winning in the war against law enforcement according to a recently released McAfee report.

"We saw the cybercriminals take advantage of economic messaging very, very quickly," said Dave Marcus, director of security research and communications for McAfee Avert Labs. He said cybercriminals are cashing in on consumer anxiety, particularly around the holidays and noted that as more and more people go online looking for better deals, criminals are preying on their inexperience in order to lure them to bogus sites and old-fashioned "get rich quick" scams.

One scam involves online job seekers responding to ads for "international sales representatives" or "shipping managers" being recruited as "cybermules" to launder the cybercriminal profits. "It's not a 'mule' in the traditional drug sense, where they're carrying drugs across the country or across a border," Marcus said, "but they are ultimately lured into what they think is like an Internet sales marketer or an Internet sales manager position." In reality they are laundering funds, putting it through additional hands, so that law enforcement has a few more obstacles in their path toward finding the thieves themselves.

Unfortunately, Internet users are on their own, he said. As governments begin to focus on internal economic hardships, the fight against cybercrime slips further in funding and support. McAfee predicts that in the fourth quarter of 2008 cybercrime will continue to escalate in severity.

According to CNET, McAfee found that there is a shortage of computer specialists in law enforcement. And those who are specially trained are often hired away to high-salaried jobs at private companies. Of the remaining law enforcement, they're often bound to national borders, said Marcus, with international jurisdictional disputes further slowing online investigations.

The McAfee report said Russia and China remain the largest safe havens for cybercriminals, while Brazil and Moldova have become the fastest-growing countries to be most often blamed for cybercrime.

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© 2012 Penton Media Inc.

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