Computer Crime a $67 Bil. Biz

Computer Networks are just as vulnerable as ever.

It seems like every day at least one story pops up in the news about cybercrime. Recently, the FBI has estimated that cybercrim costs us $67 Billion a year. Legislation tries to put a halt to the rise in cybercrime, yet since many of the perps come from overseas (predominately eastern europe), the costs to prosecute and extradite those under investigation are too high for law enforcement to incumber.

That is where we come in. As businesses and consumers, the cost of these crimes gets passed on to us. Everytime a corporate network installs a security device that runs in the tens of thousands, every time they bring on a high priced security consultant, every time they suffer a breach, we wind up paying for it. It would be easy to blame corporate greed for this, but in actuality, it is end user carelessness.

In the computer networking section, there are currently two articles that help users understand how to be less careless. By taking the time to utilize network resources properly, we put our organization, and others, at less risk.

In Secure the Network we look at ways that a computer network can be protected against malicious intruders. End users can find this helpful in knowing what defenses their network may have in place.

In Social Engineering, we look at ways end users are taken advantage of and what they can look out for when a malicious hacker tries to solicit vital information from them.