According to a report by the Cyber Secure Institute,"federal and private sector IT professionals increasingly report that the attacks they confront on a regular basis are from highly skilled, highly motivated and well-resourced actors - ranging from the Russian mob, to the Chinese military, to organised cyber-criminals.” Chilling!
Long gone are the days when teenage hackers used their computers hacking skills primarily for notoriety. Remember when hackers would simply deface a website? In the early part of the 21st century a marked shift occurred and hackers realized that money could be made from their skills...big money. And with less than a 5% chance of getting caught, they realize that cyber crime is proving to be too tempting to resist. Unfortunately, we appear to be at the beginning stages of serious, and increasingly ominous, cyber criminal activities. What I find particularly disturbing is that according to some security experts, organized crime makes more money from its cyber criminal activities than from its more traditional crimes.
Given our reliance on technology in every facet of our lives, it should unnerve everyone that cyber crime is proving to be so economically fruitful. Hopefully educational efforts will go far to counter these criminal activities before the bad guys hold us all hostage.
