What is Cyber-Crime?

Cyber-Crime comes in many forms and advances are being made all the time, criminals are either looking to cause disruption to organisations by bringing down IT systems, or for financial gain.

The common forms of Cyber-Crime are considered as:

Phishing: bogus emails that may look like they come from a trusted source asking for security information and personal details.

File hijacker: where criminals hijack files and hold them to ransom also known as Ransomware.
Keylogging: where criminals record what you type on your keyboard and steal passwords and personal information.

Screenshot manager: allows criminals to take screenshots of your computer screen.

Ad clicker: criminals will create online adverts that direct a victim’s computer to click a specific link.

Hacking: gaining access to a network to cause damage or to steal data.

Distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks: rendering a network or website unusable with a view to disrupt businesses.

Statistics around Cyber-Crimes:

​The 2019 Official Annual Cybercrime Report, published by Cybersecurity Ventures in collaboration with the leading global cybersecurity firm Herjavec Group, makes for grim reading. It sets out the vast scale of cybercrime globally, and the associated costs to organizations in damaged and destroyed data, stolen money, lost productivity, theft of intellectual property, theft of personal and financial data, disruption to business, reputational damage and more.

The projected $6 trillion figure – up from $3 trillion in 2015 – will make cybercrime more profitable for criminals than the global trade of all major illegal drugs combined, as they employ ever more sophisticated techniques to lock systems, destroy data and exploit vulnerabilities in networks and devices. The increased figure amounts to the biggest transfer of economic wealth in history.

“This dramatic rise (in damage costs) only reinforces the sharp increase in the number of organizations unprepared for a cyberattack,” said Robert Herjavec, Founder and CEO of Herjavec Group.

The rise highlights the failure of tech firms to keep pace with criminals: despite the plethora of new technology. It’s bad news for companies, large and small, which will find themselves having to raise their spending on cybersecurity products and services as they aim to stay one step ahead of criminals.