Cybercrime: Making An Offer They Can't Refuse

Guess what?

Criminal gangs in Britain are increasingly attempting to plant insiders in companies to steal data and aid cybercrime attacks.

If treated lightly, the next step will follow the patten of car theft:

• First you left your keys in your car, so it was your own fault if it got stolen.
• Then you took your keys, but didn't lock your doors, so it was still your fault.
• Then you installed an alarm, but everyone knows criminals aren't scared of those. It was ineffective and you should have known better.
• Then you put in "The Club" and it worked - so they carjacked the vehicle with you still in it!

As long as the penalties for the criminal acts were too low, the problem got worse; thieves can do cost/benefit and risk/reward calculations, too.

There's a whole lotta money in cybercrime, encouraging a ruthless attitude. And pretty soon now, the bad guys'll figger out, if they haven't already, that it's a lot easier to extort cooperation from a trusted techie than to plant one yourself. And if the penalties aren't that bad....