Cybercrime gains momentum globally

The hidden menace of Cybercrime now has a nose and eyes tacked on, as a Washington-based team of cybersleuths has finally put a value on what it costs globally. Cybercrime is often accepted as a cost of doing business in the digital world, but it is a massive cost seen as a whole. A McAfee-sponsored study, conducted by the nonprofit Washington-based policy research organisation, Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), measured cybercrime and came up with an annual cost the equivalent of…. R4.7 trillion (R4 700 000 000 000). It also measured cybercrime against piracy at sea and transnational crime – and found that it costs about 0.8% of global gross domestic product (GDP), compared with 0.02% for maritime piracy and 1.2% for transnational crime. Also, it added, cybercrime is a growth industry – with the authors of the report adamant that the current annual trade theft due to computer hackers will worsen. Indeed, Stewart Baker, a lead author of the study, was reported by Bloomberg as having said that it was a cost estimate that “might be understated” because many hacking attacks were not reported. The outlook “is increased losses and slower growth”, with no “credible scenario in which cybercrime losses diminish”, he added. And SA has its pro rata share of cybercrime, and again it’s a growth industry, according to three FTW contacts familiar with a number of aspects of cybercrime. However, one of these, Andrew Pike senior partner in the legal firm Velden Pike and Nichols, also noted that SA had its own claim to fame in the battle against the Mongol horde of hackers. The country’s first man into space, Mark Shuttleworth, was the SA cyber-warrior in question. In 1995, his final year at UCT, he founded Thawte (think how you pronounce it) Consulting, an Internet consulting company. Its focus quickly shifted to the security aspect of e-commerce transactions and Thawte developed high-quality encryption software for internet transactions – from which Shuttleworth eventually harvested R4.6 billion. But the Mongol hordes are now riding high-tech electronic steeds, and have strengthened-up their battlefront considerably. And they have invaded SA soil. “It’s large and it’s growing,” said Abdul Khan, information technology (IT) manager for international forwarders, Rohlig Grindrod – while adding that system users were often not ready to meet this challenge. “Unfortunately, they are technologically growing fast, and operators just don’t know the risks attached to this,” he told FTW. Khan stressed that the big software security operations had the knowledge and the cyber tools to cope with the problem. “But too many users don’t update their security as quickly as they should."