Cyber crooks get biz savvy

[sukishan]

SAN FRANCISCO: Cyber criminals are aping executives when it comes to sales, marketing and risk management in the world of online treachery, 
according to a report released by networking giant Cisco.

"The novel thing is that they have taken the Harvard Business School, General Electric board room business training and applied it to their old techniques" , said Cisco chief security researcher Patrick Peterson. The US technology firm summarized current threats and said hackers are increasingly operating like successful businesses. Peterson cited how cyber hackers capitalized on interest in the death of pop icon Michael Jackson in June.

Disasters, celebrity doings and other major news is routine fodder for bogus emails and websites booby-trapped with computer viruses, but in the case of Jackson's death, crooks cranked out fake news stories to dupe readers. "They had their criminal copy editors working on copy for the story as fast as it happened," Peterson said. "They brought the Jackson story to market in a way that rivals media outlets. They have an advantage; they don't have to do any reporting."

Billions of spam messages with links to trick websites or videos promising scintillating Jackson images and information were fired off in the days after his June 25 death, according to Cisco.

"Sales leads" that followed online links were turned into "customers," whose computers were stealthily infected with nefarious codes for stealing data, usurping control of machines or other evil deeds.

Cyber criminals are embracing a nefarious version of a "cloud computing" trend of offering computer applications online as services. Commanders of infected computers rent out illegally assembled networks to fellow criminals for sending spam or launching attacks. Peterson also told of an "anti-anti-virus " operation called Virtest that charges monthly fees to keep hackers informed about which security firms can detect their malicious programs. AFP