Cybercrime a threat to nation states
Cybercrime a threat to nation states
By Joseph R DeTrani
It's estimated that last year, over US$400 billion was stolen by cyber criminals who infiltrated the cyber infrastructure of financial institutions and other private sector enterprises in the US, Russia, Europe, Japan and other countries.
Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab reported that cyber criminals stole more than $300 million from banks and other financial institutions in 30 nations and, by year's end, this figure could escalate to over $1 billion in losses. The cyber criminals who attacked these financial institutions were experienced criminals who used sophisticated malware to infiltrate and patiently monitor these networks, going undetected for a period of time.
Gemalto of Amsterdam recently reported that one billion data records were compromised by cyber criminals in 2014. Also reported was the increase in data breaches, targeting primarily financial institutions, which increased by 49% in 2014. Identity theft was the objective of these attacks, which should not be a surprise to a growing number of people whose identity had been stolen and used by criminals for illicit purposes.
Recently, cyber criminals attacked Anthem Inc., a large US health insurance provider and stole millions of health insurance records, with names, social security numbers and other sensitive information for about 80 million customers. Prior to that, J.P. Morgan and at least four other financial institutions in the US were attacked by cyber criminals and lost sensitive customer account information.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-03-230215.html
