“Idle hands do the devil’s work.” That’s something we've heard over and again, and in this economic recession – an economic downturn that’s spurred record unemployment rates – it means bad news for computer security.
We reported earlier this month that at least one expert - Ron Meyran, product marketing manager of security for integrated application solutions provider Radware Ltd. – believes that when people get laid off, the risk to businesses increases.
“There are more attackers while business profitability becomes critical,” Meyran told us. “The main trends in this recession I believe will be an increase of fraud and information theft attempts. As more people get laid off, they will have more time to spend on the Internet and will believe that they can get things for free – a fertile ground for scams and identity theft.”
Today, federal officials are supporting what Meyran said.
According to Reuters (News - Alert), the so-called “Internet Crime Complaint Center,” or “IC3” – a joint agency of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National White Collar Crime Center – finds in a new report that Web fraud reported to U.S. authorities increased by 33 percent last year.
The trend marks the first rise in three years, and is surging this year as the recession deepens, Reuters reports.
“Online scams originating from across the globe – mostly from the United States, Canada, Britain, Nigeria and China – are gathering steam this year with a nearly 50 percent increase in complaints reported to U.S. authorities in March alone,” the news service reports.
One official behind the report, John Kane, reportedly told journalists: “2009 is shaping up to be a very busy year in terms of cyber-crime.”
Specifically, of 275,284 complaints received in 2008 by IC3, about 72,940 were referred to U.S. law enforcement agencies for prosecution.
“It is our belief that these numbers, both the complaints filed and the dollars, represent just a small tip of the iceberg,” Kane, managing director of the National White Collar Crime Center in Richmond, Virginia, reportedly told the press.
Many of the areas of cyber-crime cover everyday Internet uses.
“Fraudulent sales on online auction sites like eBay (News - Alert) Inc and classified sites like craigslist.com contributed to a 32 percent rise in the hottest area of online fraud – non-delivery of promised merchandise,” Reuters said, citing the report.
“That area alone made up about 33 percent of all complaints serious enough to be referred to law enforcement. Other important areas included investment scams such as mini-versions of the $65 billion Ponzi scheme committed by New York financier Bernard Madoff in which money from new investors is used to pay existing investors.”
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Michael Dinan is a contributing editor for TMCnet, covering news in the IP communications, call center and customer relationship management industries. To read more of Michael's articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Michael Dinan