Cybercrime : the invisible threat

CYBERCRIME THE INVISIBLE THREAT

Cybercrime is one of the fastest growing areas of crime. More and more criminals are exploiting the speed, convenience and anonymity that modern technologies offer in order to commit a diverse types of criminal activities. These include attacks against computer data and systems, identity theft, the distribution of child sexual abuse images, internet auction fraud, the penetration of online financial services, as well as the deployment of viruses, Botnets, and various email scams such as phishing. (52)

There are many ways for hackers to get into an organization’s systems and steal important information and they can remain undetected for long periods. Let’s talk about how the financial sector tries to fight cybercrime. (26)

The financial services, retail and tourism sectors are a top-grate target for hackers. Indeed it is where the most transaction happens online. The aim is generally to gather bank details and personal identification numbers, although there are various other reasons why hackers might infiltrate a system. For example Bank of America, Visa, MasterCard and PayPal were involved during the WikiLeaks saga in 2010, and Sony revealed that two of its products had been hacked in April this year, exposing credit card information and personal details of 70 million users, or also this week with the TARGET scandal. (65)

But they are many solutions to avoid cybercrime; the first one is to perpetually call himself questions to be able in the future to managing this threat before the system is overtake. Today all financial organization has to be ready for an attack, by a respond plan or by the possibility to isolate certain areas of systems and networks. But the most important, is that they have to educate staff and customers about the danger of a cyber-attack. (45)

Cybercrime is here to stay. It evolves quickly and continually and represents a serious threat to all organizations, regardless of sector or geography. No one can be completely safe from the threat; establishing and maintaining an effective and up-to-date security strategy is imperative and offers the best protection against hackers who try to gain unwanted entry. Finally know your enemy is the best way to reduce and avoid this invisible threat. (44)

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