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Cybercrime study: Growing economic ecosystem spells trouble
This article is part of the Information Security issue of June 2018, Vol. 20, No. 3
Law enforcement in 12 countries joined forces earlier this year to take down DDoS-for-hire site Webstresser.org. Early reports claimed that distributed denial-of-service activity dropped by as much as 60% in Europe in the days following the arrests of the website's operators in April. That small victory is promising, but more needs to be done. Organized cybercriminals are gaining momentum and profiting from an economic ecosystem of systematic activities and hyper-connected infrastructure. A cybercrime study released in April describes this economy as platform criminality, a term coined by author Michael McGuire, a senior lecturer at University of Surrey, a public research university located in Guildford, U.K. It is similar to platform capitalism, the business model used by companies such Facebook, Google and Amazon to connect individuals with data and tools that benefit them. Crimeware as a service is an example of platform criminality, according to the cybercrime report "Into the Web of Profit," sponsored by Bromium. Walmart ...
Features in this issue
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Stranger things: IoT security concerns extend CISOs' reach
The internet of things has drastically expanded the scope of what enterprises need to protect, adding challenges big and small to CISOs' responsibilities.
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Insider threat report tracks annual cost of theft, carelessness
The Ponemon Institute study "2018 Cost of Insider Threats" examines the cost to companies victimized by material insider threat incidents during the past 12 months.
Columns in this issue
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Cybercrime study: Growing economic ecosystem spells trouble
New research shows that cybercriminals are gaining momentum with connected infrastructure and collectively earning billions annually from a cybercrime economy. Now what?
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Walmart's Jerry Geisler on the CISO position, retail challenges
A global CISO in charge of one of the world's largest cybersecurity programs got his start on the retail floor. He's arrived just in time for the digital transformation.