If someone held you up for $3,000 you would go straight to the police. One out of every five people that have a computer are a victim of cyber theft but rarely are the police involved. How do you protect yourself from being one of a growing statistic?
On Tuesday, Symantec hosted the Internet Black Market for the media to help the public become more aware of what goes on when they are clicking away on their mouse.
We are becoming a virtual population; people live more and more online, using the Internet to bank, shop and keep in touch with each other.
Knowing where people are spending their time, cyber criminals have become quite wise and know how to hide viruses, malware or spyware so they will be downloaded or clicked on.
Every day, an email gets sent to a new victim. Whether it looks like a bank note or a cool video, as soon as you click on a link inside the email a cyber criminal has access to all of the information they need to steal your identity or cash.
In the old days, the cyber bad guys were generally young people writing a code that would crash your computer. Today the Black Market is most often a global network of criminals who know they will be able to rob you blind without even a slap on the hand. The top known black market seller, known as Maggie has a net worth in the $6.4 million range. When this much money is at stake it is clearly an organized crime.
These criminals are brazen enough to post in online forums like Internet Relay Chat (IRC) to advertise their stolen product. They interact with each other on these forums like any other business person, offering the tricks of their trade and who they can't trust to sell them legitimate goods.
The real money-makers are known by the police and security companies, but they often only know a screen name rather than a criminal's real identity. These criminals are not your standard smash-and-grab guys, either. Instead, they cover their tracks so they can't be found; Internet service providers (ISPs) may think an individual is in the United States, when in reality they are using a computer somewhere far away but routing through a fake location so they can go undetected.
The good news is that many people have anti-virus protection on their computers. The bad news is that the software is only as good as its user; when a person goes to unsafe sites they are putting a target on their head.
Consider the fact that in 2008, Norton coders wrote over one million lines of code to counter threats. The company said it expects to be writing up to three million code lines in 2010. The threats come faster than the coders.
Also, consider that the cyber criminals are making a lot of money writing their own codes. A legit IT tech may come out of school being able to make a meager salary. Those people are often targeted by cyber criminals who offer them as much as $720K to write code. Those codes are used to steal your credit card information and other key parts of your identity. A full ID of the average person is worth about $10 on the Black Market. Depending what country you're from, that figure goes up or down; an American ID is worth less than a Canadian ID with these criminals, and just like any other market, supply and demand dictate value.
Janice Chaffin, Group President Consumer Products and Symantec’s Security Response Team pointed out that those who write a line of code for the black market are often not sure of where their code is heading. The small time code writers are paid a few thousand for one line of code. The criminals in charge advertise in legitimate online help wanted sites like Monster.com for those with the skill to come up with the latest line of code that will help rob their victims blind.
In Canada alone there are about 82,000 new bots a day roaming online to fetch your information. That information may take months for the criminal to actually use and the trail will be cold when they do.
Norton is working to protect its consumers through education and within the government. The Internet Security company wants the public to know that they are at a high risk of being a crime victim.
So how do you protect yourself? One of the easiest steps is to think before you click. Don't download files without making sure that they are safe. Protect your computer with anti-virus and safe Internet software. Another step is to educate others in your home to take the same steps. Our children may be computer savvy but they are also prone to wanting to get their favorites right now. Teaching them to be click smart is a must. Your identity depends on it.
