The Changing Face of Cybercrime

Understanding cybercrime requires that we think about it in a very different way from the crime we all know in the physical world. A broken car window and a missing radio tell you there was a burglary. A wallet missing from your back pocket tells you you’ve been pick-pocketed. A wailing home security system informs the neighborhood of a potential break-in. But in cyberspace, few if any of those clues exist.

In the old days of cybercrime, virus writers lived for notoriety. If your computer was infected with a virus, you were usually only aware after a sudden or significant change in the computer’s operation. It displayed strange messages or suddenly slowed down to a crawl. Those simple days are over, my friends.

Today’s cybercriminal is part of an enormous and increasingly well-coordinated underground economy – these guys don’t just destroy computers, they destroy lives. There is an active black market network where criminals buy and sell parts of your identity to the highest bidder: your email accounts, your credit card numbers, your online banking passwords. Computers infected with malicious software called “bots” are also being used by their criminal masters to send out spam emails and attack vulnerable websites with denial of service attacks. Most of the crime exists to make someone money, while some are even motivated by politics and cyber terrorism.

The key lesson? Anyone and everything that goes online are potentially vulnerable to a cyber attack. Cybercriminals take full advantage of their technological tricks to steal your money, invade your privacy or take control of your computer. As a savvy computer user, you know you need to take action to protect yourself – but even the savviest may still not know how.

Here are some of the top five tips for staying several steps ahead of today’s underground cybercriminal:

1. Use a state-of-the-art integrated security software suite, such as Norton Internet Security or Norton 360. It’s not always sufficient to use just an antivirus; you need firewall, identity protection, intrusion prevention and more.
2. Maintain vigilance with your operating system and browser. Make sure you’re using the latest version and configure each to automatically update with patches and security fixes.
3. Be cyber street savvy – don’t click on links in email, Instant Messaging, social networks or even text messages on your phone without double checking with the sender.
4. Don’t fall for the fake “antivirus” security alerts or advertising that continue to propagate online. Often, the “scamware” is worse than any virus, doing nothing to protect you while ripping you off to boot.
5. Back up your computer and important data. Prepare today for a crisis tomorrow. Norton Online Backup is a great and easy way to secure your data online, which also gives you remote access to all of your backed up files through the Web via any computer.