The next big thing? Crimeware-as-a-service

Close to maturity, watch out!: Cybercrime against commercial and end-users is going to be big business this year. I expect to see a big ramp-up in fraud and extortion incidents, and we will continue to see the same lip service from law enforcement agencies who see it as unsexy drudge work compared to terrorism or kiddie porn investigating.

At the same time the banks and credit card companies continue with the very same policies that make identity theft so easy, and companies continue to have data breaches that are hushed-up or misrepresented in scope and severity.

In the meantime, there are 3 actions that every consumer should take to minimize the damage:

1) cancel non-essential credit cards and lines of credit;
2) put blocks on your credit reports to prevent new lines of credit from being approved;
3) look for ID theft insurance.

With hundreds of billions in write-downs and fraud being uncovered in the subprime fiasco, cybercrime is not getting much coverage from the FBI or the press these days. A billion or two in losses are small change to them.

But if YOUR life has just been ruined because of a $50K loss from your savings account or you are being harassed by creditors 10 hours a day, then it's a big deal to you; Posted by: terry flores Posted on: 04/07/08 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use