Cybercrime Running into Trillions Experts Say...

Published:27-March-2009 - Computer Business Review
By Kevin White

Rogueware network monitoring indicates size of problem

Survey says cyber crime overtakes physical crime
According to a global survey of over 3,000 IT managers spanning all industries and company sizes com ...

More money is now being made from cybercrime than the billions that come from drug trafficking, AT&T's Chief Security Officer Edward Amoroso has told a US Senate Commerce Committee.

Some $1 trillion annually is being siphoned off by cyber criminals according to the security chief, an estimate that the CTO at Finjan Inc, Yuval Ben Itzhak reckons is about right.

"In our Q1 2009 report on cybercrime, we revealed that one single rogueware network was raking in $10,800 a day, or $39.42 million a year. If you extrapolate those figures across the many thousands of cybercrime operations that exist on the internet at any given time, the results easily reach a trillion dollars," he said.

According to Ben-Itzhak, Finjan's Q1 2009 security trends report also revealed that traffic volume to compromised Web sites has increased significantly, so luring masses of potential buyers to rogueware offerings.

He believes that this could just be the beginning of a wider trend that we will experience in 2009 and 2010.

“Having the large number of layoffs of IT professionals all around the world, especially in the USA, we expect a rising number of people willing to ‘give it a try’ and to get stolen credit card numbers, online banking accounts and corporate data that they can use to generate income,” he added.