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A big problem we are facing in the fight against financial cybercrimes is that the criminal complaint has almost disappeared. Even when a police report is filed due to a cyberheist, the response is often "so the bank will give you your money back Case closed," said Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics with the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
That was one of the conclusions from a Congressional hearing this week called "Hacked Off: Helping Law Enforcement Protect Private Financial Information."
General public apathy and collaboration with the law enforcement community assure that cybercrimes of all sorts will continue to rise.
"The understandable hesitation of law enforcement to "work a case" in these areas has led to an unfortunate form of apathy by the consumer as well as the financial institutions. Large banks lose millions of dollars each year to phishing and malware, but they reimburse the cost to customers and structure the losses into the cost of doing business. Consumers have been trained that if they experience financial losses they should contact their financial institution rather than the police. If they have had their money returned by their financial institution, there is little incentive to share that information with law enforcement," he stated.
"Website owners hosting their small business and personal websites in the United States, have had their servers hacked for use by phishing criminals more than 40,000 times so far in 2011. At the present time, I am unaware of a single situation where the hacker was arrested, Warner added. Because of the experience of the crime "going overseas" many law enforcement officers are hesitant to take these cases and local law enforcement officers question whether it is even appropriate for them to be involved in a case that is potentially international."
Protect your network by ensuring your employees are not providing easy access to it. Check out how phish-prone your staff is by testing them with a FREE phishing security test.
Stu Sjouwerman
KnowBe4
[/caption]A big problem we are facing in the fight against financial cybercrimes is that the criminal complaint has almost disappeared. Even when a police report is filed due to a cyberheist, the response is often "so the bank will give you your money back Case closed," said Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics with the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
That was one of the conclusions from a Congressional hearing this week called "Hacked Off: Helping Law Enforcement Protect Private Financial Information."
General public apathy and collaboration with the law enforcement community assure that cybercrimes of all sorts will continue to rise.
"The understandable hesitation of law enforcement to "work a case" in these areas has led to an unfortunate form of apathy by the consumer as well as the financial institutions. Large banks lose millions of dollars each year to phishing and malware, but they reimburse the cost to customers and structure the losses into the cost of doing business. Consumers have been trained that if they experience financial losses they should contact their financial institution rather than the police. If they have had their money returned by their financial institution, there is little incentive to share that information with law enforcement," he stated.
"Website owners hosting their small business and personal websites in the United States, have had their servers hacked for use by phishing criminals more than 40,000 times so far in 2011. At the present time, I am unaware of a single situation where the hacker was arrested, Warner added. Because of the experience of the crime "going overseas" many law enforcement officers are hesitant to take these cases and local law enforcement officers question whether it is even appropriate for them to be involved in a case that is potentially international."
Protect your network by ensuring your employees are not providing easy access to it. Check out how phish-prone your staff is by testing them with a FREE phishing security test.
Stu Sjouwerman
KnowBe4
