digg

Facebook Connect Join Digg About

Trying to Keep Pace with Cybercrooks is Proving Difficult

news.com.com — Authorities are cracking down on phishing and botnets, but the threats are advancing instead of diminishing, two law enforcement officials said.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jun 16, 2006

Digg DudeWhat is Digg?

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg surfaces the best stuff as submitted and voted on by the community. Take the Tour to learn more.

22 Comments

show profanity settings
expand all
  • cheerio, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This should be fairly obvious. You catch a criminal and then tell him how you caught them. If you get a ticket for speeding in a certain area, you either get a radar detector, or you learn to slow down through it. Saying that you can reliably catch system crackers is just playing with fire. Look at Mac supposedly having a safer OS. Didn't take someone long to prove that MAC is not an exception.
  • aguita, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@Moo113:

    Providing the company actually follows any sort of security. However, in my experience, that is not the case. Last several companies I've worked at had all personal information stored in an unencrypted format! Yes, including SSN. These were companies with thousands to millions of information stored unencrypted.
  • steelmaverick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Moo113:

    Thats true. But still, there should be no reason for them to ask you for anything
  • tacom8, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4wasn't there something on here yesterday saying that "cybercrime" was on the downturn??

    damn you "liberal" media and your wishy-washy ways!
  • Ireland, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6"Trying to Keep Pace with Cybercrooks is Proving Difficult"

    What's that the first sentence out of the Vista security manual?
  • steelmaverick, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4The problem isn't the phishing, its the misinformed people.

    After all, why would your bank ask you for your password, WHEN THEY HAVE YOUR PASSWORD!!!

    I mean, supposedly, the admins of any site has unlimited access to everrything, why would they need any input from you?
  • elgimpo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3There will always be cybercriminals, just like there will always be criminals in real life... with better security comes "better" criminals, it's the way the world works
  • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3“The more you tighten your grip... the more star systems will slip through your fingers.” - Princess Leia
  • catbeller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It occurs to me that perhaps these techniques could be used to build better darknets for the hard years coming up. Piggybacking proprietary protocols like Skype, hm? Interesting. Maybe bots combined with encrypted tunneling could open up new ways of annoying Alberto Gonzales.
  • geofffox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'll save you the trouble of finding my blog to read this:

    I don't get it. I mean, I understand why criminals want this stuff, and how it works. The part that evades me is, why isn't this easy to stop?

    At some point, each of these thefts involves an illegal transaction. Why not 'seed' these phishing sites with bogus information which would immediately raise flags when used?

    When similar techniques are used domestically, they are called sting operations. Cyber-stings shouldn't be any more difficult, should they? And there are stings run against crimes a lot less costly than what's happening online.

    How many people need to be publicly locked up before this problem begins to go away?
  • CornStarch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2One of these days you just won't be able to prevent people from committing crimes, it's going to be so simple get over on people that they are just going to have to *choose not to screw each other over.
  • compu73rg33k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1In other news: "Trying To Keep Pace with Drug Dealers Is Proving Difficult"
  • moo113, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Generally, especially with larger sites and/or companies, all personal data is stored in encrypted databases thus causing the sysadmin's and other alike no access to it.
  • geofffox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1To Oqopogo's comment - which I mostly agree with - the real power is held by the credit card issuing banks and the VISA and Mastercard hierarchy. They can cut off the ability of these Eastern Block banks to participate in credit card programs et al. In the end, the big international banks will wield greater power and are more important to the local banking establishment than the petty scammers. However, the longer this goes on and the more deeply entrenched it becomes, the more difficult it will be.
  • hodyoaten, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Authorities are cracking down on phishing and botnets, but the threats are advancing instead of diminishing, two law enforcement officials said."

    The two law enforcement officials also said they're heading over to Krispy Kreme, and want to know if you all want anything.
  • kindrobot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1So which is it? More "cybercrime" or less?

    I guess if you're looking for more funding, it would be more.
  • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1[quote]A lot of these scams are run out of former east-block countries. [/quote]

    Many are run out of the current west-block Carribbean and South Pacific. You know, the same place Dick Cheney launders his ill-gotten fortunes embezzled from US taxpayers.

    [quote]They can cut off the ability of these Eastern Block banks[/quote]

    Dick Cheney won't let them. How will he launder his $$$?
  • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I don't see Al Gore doing much to save "his" creation from Alberto Gonzales' tyrannical grasp. What's the deal, Al?
  • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1[quote]you either get a radar detector, or you learn to slow down through it.[/quote]

    Actually, these days you can get a radar jammer. I'm hoping someone releases personal anti-radiation missiles soon. Eliminate the radar speed trap entirely. A smaller version of one of these:

    http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/agm-88.htm

    Um, I think this has gone completely off topic.
  • Bradl3y, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Typically people get their passwords stolen when typing them in to a website that appears to be their banks website. And logging into your banks website is common practice.

    Most admins do not have access to peoples passwords. If passwords are retreivable by admins, then it can be possible to hack, or even physically B&E to retreive the passwords. In most authentication systems, passwords are stored and compared as hashes.
  • binary64, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I think the lesson to the masses is: to know emails are easily faked. and people should use bookmarks within their browser to go to the sites the email is talking about. of course, this does mean the email should lay out a set of instructions to perform the same 'click url' as is on the email e.g. a code to copy&paste.

    most genuine emails will have an alternative to clicking a url on the email.
  • Ogopogo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0@geofffox "How many people need to be publicly locked up before this problem begins to go away?"

    A lot of these scams are run out of former east-block countries. Law-enforcement is having enough trouble dealing with 'blood'n guts" crime. Cops don't have enough funds to keep fuel in their vehicles. They moonlight for the mafia after-hours. These cyber-crooks often are diversified into spamming and on-line video porn, etc.. and have financial kick-back arrangments with the local politcians. They also are a source of 'hard' western funds so the local banks look the other way and don't ask awkward questions.

  • Add a Comment

    Login or register to comment!
    Or, sign-in super fast with your Facebook account ...


© Digg Inc. 2009 — Content created and posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain | Terms of Use Updated | Privacy Policy
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.