Courting cyber crooks?

AS THE cat-and-mouse game between cyber criminals and security experts intensifies, the baddies seem to be stepping into ever new territory — and sometimes with the help of legitimate entities. Some businesses are now turning to high-tech hackers to help them cripple rival websites, according to one security firm.

Published: Sat 12 May 2007, 8:44 AM

Last updated: Sun 5 Apr 2015, 12:58 AM

At this stage, such reports are likely to be considered anecdotal. Our experience with cyberspace as well as the cut-throat business environment makes this form of industrial sabotage a plausible threat. Almost in tandem with the advent of the Internet, fraudsters have been preying on unsuspecting surfers, pilfering personal information and posing as people they are not.

Over time, these unscrupulous elements have proved successful in inflicting heavy financial losses by accessing bank accounts of owners who remain blissfully unaware of the crime for days on. Apart from its manifold contemporary connotations, the term ’identity theft’ has come to symbolise the ease with which the sanctity of the individual and firm can be violated.

From the other end, cyber-crooks have been extorting companies by mounting periodic attacks on popular websites, flummoxing owners with their nefarious inventiveness. The scale of the problem has spawned a separate career trajectory called cyber-security. With proper prodding, former offenders have transformed into enforcers.

Advances towards securing the virtual world have made direct assaults on businesses riskier. So fraudsters are diversifying. They now increasingly hijack home computers and use them to pump out junk e-mail to knock a site or server offline.

If criminals are to be prevented in time from becoming tools for companies seeking to undermine competitors, then this is the time for deterrence. Unfortunately, however, while market watchdogs are struggling to enforce fair business practices on the web, the offenders have segmented their markets. The security firm Prolexic sees a growing number of Asian targets being hit by industrial-scale cyber-attacks. In the battle against these new swindlers, one old attribute retains its relevance: eternal vigilance.