2013 – The Impact of Cybercrime

http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/

Introduction
Recent studies published on the evolution of principal cyber threats in the security landscape. They present concerning scenarios, characterized by the constant growth of cyber criminal activities.

Even though the level of awareness of cyber threats has increased, and law enforcement acts globabally to combat them, illegal profits have reached amazing figures. The impact to society has become unsustainable, considering the global economic crisis.

It’s necessary to work together to avoid the costs the global community suffers, which we can no longer sustain. The risk of business collapse is concrete, due to the high cost for enterprises in mitigating counter measures, and the damage caused by countless attacks.

In this article, we’ll quantify the economic impact of cybercrime in 2013, by highlighting the main trends in the criminal ecosystem that concerns the security community.

Current scenario

Principal security firms which observe and analyze the incidents occurred to their clients have provided estimates of the annual loss suffered by enterprises. Dozens of billion dollars tare eroding their profits. If we extend the effects of cybercrime to government circles, public industry and the entire population, it’s easy to assume that the amount of damage reaches several hundred billion dollars.

In many cases, that estimate can be misleading. That’s because there were still too many companies that fail to quantify the losses related to cybercrime. In some cases, they totally ignore that they’re victims of attacks. The majority of estimates relied on a survey, and loss estimates are based on raw assumptions about the magnitude and effect of cyber attacks to provide an economic evaluation.

Cyber criminal activities are increasing by incidence in a scenario made worse by the economic crisis. We also face tightened spending by the private sector, and reduced financial liquidity.

Nearly 80% of cybercrime acts are estimated to originate in some form of organized activity. The diffusion of the model of fraud-as-service and the diversification of the offerings of the underground market is also attracting new actors with modest skills. Cybercrime is becoming a business opportunity open to everybody driven by profit and personal gain.

According to experts at RSA security, cybercrime continues to improve its techniques and the way it organizes and targets victims. The RSA Anti-Fraud Command Center (AFCC) has developed the following list of the top cybercrime trends it expects to see evolve:

• As the world goes mobile, cybercrime will follow
  
• The privatization of banking, trojans and other malware
  
• Hacktivism and the ever-targeted enterprise
  
• Account takeover and increased use of manually-assisted cyber attacks
  
• Cybercriminals will leverage Big Data principles to increase the effectiveness of attacks
  

Cybercrime activities are globally diffused, financially-driven acts. Such computer-related fraud is prevalent, and makes up around one third of acts around the world.

Another conspicuous portion of cybercrime acts are represented by computer content, including child pornography, content related to terrorism offenses, and piracy. Another significant portion of crime relates to acts against confidentiality, integrity and accessibility of computer systems. That includes illegal access to a computer system, which accounts for another one third of all acts.

==> Read More