Number of Internet threats to enterprise and consumer computers up 300 % since 2005
Gillian Shaw
Sun
The United States has become the Internet’s virtual shopping mall for stolen credit cards, home to more than half of the globe’s underground servers that are used in the identity theft trade.
That’s among the findings of Symantec’s Internet Security Report, released today, that puts the black-market price of a U.S.-based credit card with a card-verification number between $1 and $6 US, with the more lucrative full identity package — including a U.S. bank account, credit card, date of birth and government issued identification number — at the going rate of between $14 and $18 U.S.
And the chance of falling victim to cyber thieves is only increasing, with the number of Internet threats to enterprise and consumer computers up 300 per cent since 2005.
“We have seen overall an increase in malicious activity globally,” said Dean Turner, executive editor of the Symantec Internet Security Threat Report, an update on Internet security covering the six months ending Dec. 31, 2006. “It’s all about money, follow the money.
“It’s easy, there is a lot of money and the risk of getting caught is much lower than smashing a storefront window and grabbing something,” Turner said of the increase in data theft that is reaping windfall profits for techno-savvy and usually organized criminals.
The global nature of the Internet makes it difficult for police and security agencies to clamp down on the growing cyber crime. Even if perpetrators of the crimes are traced, Turner points out, “what are the chances of being dragged back to the country where the crime took place and being prosecuted?”
While an increasing number of home computers are being turned into bots (machines that let Internet fraudsters launch attacks and otherwise wreak online havoc while their owners remain unaware of their computers’ alter underground occupation), much of the recorded data theft and leakage comes from government, education and health organizations.
But Turner pointed out that that assessment could be skewed by the fact that businesses are not bound to disclose security breaches, so they could be underreported in the statistics. Canada has seen high profile examples of that, with one of the most recent the CIBC loss of a computer hard drive containing personal and financial information on fund account holders, a security gaffe that occurred some time before the victims of the lost identity data were notified.
Canada saw an increase of almost 144 per cent in bot-infected machines in the last half of 2006, with the country ranking tenth worldwide and accounting for two per cent of the world’s bot-infected computers.
Vancouver is tied with Montreal, each having nine per cent of Canada’s bot-infected computers, while Toronto has 21 per cent.
CYBER CRIME ON THE RISE
51%: Portion of the globe’s underground servers engaged in the identify theft business that are located in the United States.
300%: Increase in Internet threats to businesses and consumers since 2005.
144%: Increase in bot-infected machines in Canada in the last half of 2006.
3.64%: The average numbers of laptops the FBI has had lost or stolen every month between Feb. 2002 and Sept. 2005.
86%: Portion of credit and debit cards advertised for sale on underground economy servers that were issued by banks in the United States.
41%: Portion of Internet attacks in Canada that originate from the U.S.
Source: Symantec Internet Security Threat Report, for the six months ending Dec. 31, 2006
© The Vancouver Sun 2007