Here are some particularly frightening articles on the subject of surveillance and cybercrime:
- Half the world’s PCs use pirated software: much of this piracy is in the majority world. Many of these computers are infested with trojans, malware, keyloggers and the like.
- How an Omniscient Internet ‘Sextortionist’ Ruined the Lives of Teen Girls: this horrifying article shows how a hacker used malware (disguised in part as music downloaded from P2P torrents) to take over computers, turn on webcams and microphones, identity-hack and solicit NSFW photos and then use them for blackmail. The point for us being that computers which are exposed to malware can easily be turned into surveillance and blackmail devices.
- The spy who tweeted me: intelligence community wants to monitor social media: if the CIA is seeking permission to do this, we should understand that other intelligence agencies (with less oversight) are already doing this. And cybercriminals are certainly doing these kinds of things against targets.
- Cybercrime is now bigger than the drugs trade: The Norton Cybercrime Report says the straight-up financial costs of cyberattacks is in excess of $100 billion; time lost dealing with crime adds another $275 billion. The global trade in marijuana, cocaine and heroin together equate to about $288 billion. 14 aqdults become the victim of a cybercrime every second.
Mission agencies must take proactive steps to secure the computers of their staff against cybercrime–at the very least by installing an easy to use antivirus package. Microsoft Security Essentials is the one I use. Couple this with a good firewall and the computer will be secure–I haven’t had a virus years, but I remember one time in China a USB stick I was given had a ton of viruses on it and I was very thankful for strong antivirus protection.
Second, we should at international conferences be offering a service to wipe viruses off computers and install strong antivirus protection.
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