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Monday, August 6, 2007
Bank hack attacks up 81%
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of my best friends - I’ve mentioned him here before - is a high-priced, high-flying, consultant. His current assignment is with a huge bank that does work worldwide. The job is to tighten security.
No wonder he gets the big bucks. Hacking attacks on banks jumped an incredible 81 percent last year.
I once thought that - when readers sent e-mail worrying about doing their banking online - folks were too paranoid. I knew there were risks, there are always risks, but I had no idea things were that bad.
I’m linking to an article here that talks about the problem. If you read it you’ll see another trend that we’ve discussed on this blog - the availability of programs that do all the heavy lifting of hacking for you.
Like the article says, you don’t need to be a technical genius to become a computer criminal. You just need the ability to buy what amounts to a hacking kit from the geniuses who write the stuff.
Back in 2004 I was involved in an ambitious project, mostly about the guys who create all the spam that you hate, but it also talked about the growing involvement of organized crime in the black hat world of hacking. That growing professionalism marked a real shift in the dangers that consumers face.
When hacking was mostly done for the fun of it breaking into complex systems - hey everyone defines fun differently - there was a danger. But the really active hackers in the early days were mostly after a challenge, not cash. As professionals saw the profit motive, things rapidly changed and the risk to you went way up.
I remember visiting with an FBI agent at the agency’s Computer Crime Center - located in a non-descript building in rural West Virginia. He explained things in a way that anyone could understand. I am not going to look up the exact quote - we used it in the series of articles - but this is pretty close:
“A bank robber, a guy who goes into a bank with a gun usually gets about $3,000. And he has a good chance of getting killed and an even better chance of going to jail. But someone who breaks in with a computer can get much more money and has much less chance of getting caught.”
Anyway, it’s a scary scenario and apparently the problem is growing enormously.
About the only good news on the topic is that banks are recognizing the problem. That’s why my buddy spends a lot of time on airplanes, gets flown back to Atlanta every weekend, and lives in a nice penthouse during the five days he’s at work with the bank. The only way to fight the growing professionalism in the black hat world is to find smart guys who are wearing white hats to close the gaps.
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