Cybercrime Now Worth $105 Billion, Bypasses Drug Trade 177
Stony Stevenson writes "Citing recent highly publicized corporate data breaches that have beset major companies like Ameritrade, Citigroup, and Bank of America, McAfee CEO David DeWalt, said that cyber-crime has become a US$105 billion business that now surpasses the value of the illegal drug trade worldwide. Despite the increase in government compliance requirements and the proliferation of security tools, companies continue to underestimate the threat from phishing, data loss, and other cyber vulnerabilities, DeWalt said. 'Worldwide data losses now represent US$40 billion in losses to affected companies and individuals each year, DeWalt says. But law enforcement's ability to find, prosecute, and punish criminals in cyberspace has not kept up: "If you rob a 7-11 you'll get a much harsher punishment than if you stole millions online," DeWal remarked. "The cross-border sophistication in tracking and arresting cyber-criminals is just not there."'"
Sounds scary (Score:5, Funny)
Does O'Reilly or Manning have a book on how to become a cybercriminal? Besides the Camel, I mean.
Re:Penalties are not that much lower (Score:4, Funny)
That Conrad Black will be facing a real "three strikes" kind of deal!
This must mean... (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe we'd better start a war on cyber crime too, seeing how the drug war has been so successful!
Snark (Score:5, Funny)
"Thank you for your correspondence dated 17 May 2001, 22 January 2002, 8 July 2004, 14 March 2006, and 19 September 2007, requesting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation enforce existing wire fraud statutes with at least the same vigor with which we enforce non-violent drug posession statutes. Upon review, we regret to inform you that your requests to date were not of the form required by this authority.
"Please re-submit your request according to the traditionally established procedure. The most recent edition of this procedure may be obtained from the office of Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK). Your request may be filed at any Republican party field office. Please enclose with your request a cashier's check made payable to the Republican National Committee in the sum of no less than fifteen million (15,000,000) US dollars or equivalent sum in easily-convertible currency excepting Euros. Please do not enclose cash.
"We pride ourselves on providing our customers the best and most convenient law enforcement service possible, and look forward to receiving your request."
Re:Maybe this isn't true (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This number (Score:2, Funny)
Oh, the "war on cybercrime" is just a campaign slogan away from reality. Are you ready for random searches of your hard drive? With my luck, a random search of my hard drive would reveal trace amounts of cocaine.
How do you divide 105 B$ ? (Score:3, Funny)
x B$ stolen from e-mail users who have to work through deluges of spam
x B$ stolen from drug companies by thieves who sell illegal generics online
x B$ stolen from software vendors by digital-high-seas pirates
x B$ stolen from the RIAA and the MPAA by the common man who won't pay retail price
x B$ stolen from bookstores by project Gutenberg
x B$ stolen from encyclopedia makers by Wikipedia users
x B$ stolen from McAfee and other security vendors by Linux and OS X users
x B$ stolen from buggy-whip makers by car drivers
McAfee is here to help: your computer will be safe from all these cyber-crime enablers.
Re:How to make a number up (Score:5, Funny)
They're including sales of Windows Vista. If releasing that thing to the market isn't a crime, I don't know what is.
(Ba dump bump.)
Re:Shift emphasis (Score:4, Funny)
We could probably make this easier by just call them all "the war on freedom".
Re:Shift emphasis (Score:3, Funny)
Only on Slashdot..
Drug Dealers (Score:3, Funny)
Imagine IRC channels dedicated to the drug trade!