In
the old days, there are only a dozen malware programs. Today we have more than
hundreds of millions of malware programs, thousands of professional hacking
organizations and tens of thousands people who steal millions or even billions
of dollars via the Internet every year. Although we have smarter online users,
better detection tools and a host of legal tools at our disposal, Internet
crime is still worse than ever. It’s been a long time since I’ve run into
someone who hasn’t had his or her life affected by Internet crime. How did the
Internet crime get so big? Why do we let Internet criminals get away so easily
that it impacts and threatens nearly every transaction we commit cover the
Internet? Read on:
Internet
criminals almost never get caught
The
world is full of rancorous individuals who have no problem playing with rules
and laws, as well as taking property that belongs to other people. We know that
bad people exist everywhere and the internet is a very low-risk neighborhood in
which they can do anything they like. There are thousands of Internet
criminals, almost none of whom get caught or prosecuted. If you’re an Internet
criminal, you have to be very cheeky for a long time and make mistakes before
you get caught.
You
don’t have to be a mastermind or uber hacker. One of the most popular
misconceptions is that you have to hyper intelligent to get away with cyber
crime. The exact opposite is true. Most Internet criminals I’ve met are not
particular smart. They couldn’t program a simple notepad application and they
certainly don’t have to be smart as the average defender. They simply lack
morals, buy program from other which is smarter programmers and want to roll
the dice and take the risk.
But
they aren’t taking any risk and that’s the central problem: You can get rich
without much risk of getting caught. Until this situation changes, we will
never see a significant decrease in Internet crime.
Lack
of legal evidence
Another
reason why Internet crime is getting worse is because of legal evidence. Most
courts accept the best representation of evidence recorded during the
commission of a crime. But most computers don’t collect any evidence at all,
much less evidence that might stand a chance of holding up in court.
I’m
still surprised by the number of computers don’t even have logging turned on. Even
if more evidence was collected, most of it wouldn’t stand up to a decent
lawyer, assuming it would even be allowed in court. Collecting and preparing
god legal evidence takes planning, time and commitment. Not many organizations
have the dedication or expertise.
Cyber
crime isn’t hurting the economy enough
Lastly,
the amount of Internet crime isn’t hurting economies enough to raise a global
alert. Sure, the Internet crime probably results in the loss of hundreds of
millions or even several billion dollars each year, but that amount of crime
has existed for a long time before the Internet.
Most
of today’s Internet was around. Example: Credit card fraud – Retail stores
would once look up known fraudulent credit card numbers in little paper books
that the credit card vendors handed out.
I’ve
often wondered what it would take for our world to decide to diminish Internet
crime significantly. We’ve had the means and technology to do so for a long
time. We are not waiting for some fantastic news technology. Everything we need
we already have, except for global consensus on how to do it and actually
enabling the new features.
Personally,
I think it’s going to take a huge disaster. A digital disaster will happen
eventually and bring down much of the Internet for a few days or shut down
financial for a few hours or more. Passive acceptance of Internet crime will no
longer be tolerated. We’ll finally have to do something about it, which can
start from practicing cyber safety.
Written By:
Cheong Jie Keanne
Bachelor of Public Relations (Honours)
Tunku Abdul Rahman University College
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