Once upon a time being the victim of theft meant that someone picked your pocket, grabbed your purse and ran, or robbed your home. They were there and then gone, along with your belongings. The internet and our ever increasing desire for faster and more convenient technology has given rise to a whole new breed of criminals; internet scammers (cybercriminals).
Unfortunately for those earliest victims, things like a cyber security degree were a long way off, and most people simply had no idea how easy it was for strangers to steal from them through something as unthreatening as their computer terminal. Security was low and risk was high.
As early as 1973 a bank teller at the New York Dime savings Bank utilized a computer to quietly embezzle over two million dollars and the first person known to have been convicted of an online crime was Ian Murphy in 1981. He hacked into the AT&T computers and gave customers off hour discounts during non-discounted billing hours.
Messing with a phone bill may not seem like a very big deal by today’s standards, but that’s the whole point. Those early pioneers of cyber fraud saw unlimited opportunities for financial gain and grabbed them wholeheartedly. The technology was there, the money was there, but there were no resources for law enforcement, no cyber security degree or specialized education to stop the new face of crime and they knew it. By 1984 cyber crime had become so rampant that the US Comprehensive Crime Control Act gave the Secret Service jurisdiction over computer fraud and theft.
With every new technology released to the tech hungry public, you can be sure that there are many people working on a way to manipulate it to their advantage. Given that fact, it’s good to know that law makers and law enforcement are working just as hard to make sure that this doesn’t happen.
This article was written by Philip J. Reed
Until such time as cybercrime is a thing of the past it is up to each organization and person within access to the Internet to take personal responsibility for Internet security awareness. Now is the time to proof up your employees against cybercrime; the means is with Internet security awareness training. Take a free Internet security phishing test!
Unfortunately for those earliest victims, things like a cyber security degree were a long way off, and most people simply had no idea how easy it was for strangers to steal from them through something as unthreatening as their computer terminal. Security was low and risk was high.
As early as 1973 a bank teller at the New York Dime savings Bank utilized a computer to quietly embezzle over two million dollars and the first person known to have been convicted of an online crime was Ian Murphy in 1981. He hacked into the AT&T computers and gave customers off hour discounts during non-discounted billing hours.
Messing with a phone bill may not seem like a very big deal by today’s standards, but that’s the whole point. Those early pioneers of cyber fraud saw unlimited opportunities for financial gain and grabbed them wholeheartedly. The technology was there, the money was there, but there were no resources for law enforcement, no cyber security degree or specialized education to stop the new face of crime and they knew it. By 1984 cyber crime had become so rampant that the US Comprehensive Crime Control Act gave the Secret Service jurisdiction over computer fraud and theft.
With every new technology released to the tech hungry public, you can be sure that there are many people working on a way to manipulate it to their advantage. Given that fact, it’s good to know that law makers and law enforcement are working just as hard to make sure that this doesn’t happen.
This article was written by Philip J. Reed
Until such time as cybercrime is a thing of the past it is up to each organization and person within access to the Internet to take personal responsibility for Internet security awareness. Now is the time to proof up your employees against cybercrime; the means is with Internet security awareness training. Take a free Internet security phishing test!
