Cyber Crime Evolution

Chances are high that you have received a phish in your e-mail within the few months or even last week. The operations that involve phishing scams will have accelerated due to aggressive malware propagation (trojans, viruses), automated botnets, and the overall infrastructure that has been established by these cyber-scammers.

So let’s step back for a moment. Our world has changed significantly since I was a kid. Just 10 years ago, the sophistication of hackers and the tools available to them were somewhat limited from both the national and international security perspective.Yes, there was cyber-crime, no denying that, but not at the audacious level we are experiencing today. Breaking into computer systems was motivated by the need for exploration, information, and education.That was the world of the late-night, for-fun hackers, which are now but a memory (who would have thought we would be nostalgic for them one day!).

The hackers of the past are likely now working as information security professionals, attempting to close the very same Pandora’s box they contributed to opening not too long ago.The knowledge contributed by hackers today, also known as security researchers, are molded by ethics and discipline; they are reticent to release their findings, not because of “controversial” activity but because of the responsibilities required to protect this double-edged sword. People hackers and researchers call script kiddies are the principal breed of criminals on the Internet today.They are usually young and not terribly creative or skilled at hacking, but they have three attributes that make them extremely dangerous: time, persistence, and proof-of-concept code written by the creative and skilled security researcher. These “kids” can and will scan the entire Internet, breaking into computers (also known as owning a system) and using your personal machines inappropriately and arbitrarily for their own purposes.

Ten years ago, most hackers were not looking at breaking into Windows desktops (since most of them ran on a 14.4kbps modem); they were usually targeting Windows NT and various flavors of UNIX systems.Typically targeting corporate and government computers, libraries, and universities, most cyber acts were usually performed with benign intentions and curiosity as the primary motives.

With the recent proliferation of broadband, the targets have shifted to literally anything and everything that is vulnerable. According to the Internet Storm Center (http://isc.sans.org), the average time for a default unpatched Windows box to survive uncompromised on the Internet is 20 minutes. But why break into my Windows computer if I have nothing valuable on there? The intentions behind of most “break-ins” today are utilitarian in nature, ranging from something as dense as using your machine for hard drive space and bandwidth to store and trade music files (MP3s) to supporting spammers’ and phishers’ activities (most of these compromises are in the form of automated malware).