Where broadband grows – cybercrime surely follows

By admin | June 11, 2009 | Leave a Comment

I read with interest that VNU is reporting that Global IP traffic is to swell fivefold by 2013. That’s an amazing number driven by the spread of high-speed broadband, ubiquitous internet access and the increasing use of high-definition video as we continue to find new ways to use the Internet.

However, history shows that as broadband rolls out, cybercrime and online criminality follows.

It seems like each year we bring out the Symantec Internet Security Threat Report, one, usually emerging country, leaps out of the country charts. Nine times out of ten that country has recently seen a new expansion of broadband usage. Indeed in the recent ISTR XIV, Brazil, Turkey, and Poland were notably high in the ‘Top 10′ countries for malicious activity, largely due to emerging internet and broadband infrastructure in those countries.

The professional cybercriminal underworld operates a flexible business model which looks for opportunities to exploit new regions of the world to spread their activities. It is this flexibility which allows them to move their focus of activities to emerging markets where broadband pickup is expanding and maybe where market education and security can sometimes be lagging behind. Our report into the Underground Economy looks into this trend as well.

So if this news report is correct, it can be expected that the Cybercriminals will continue to spread their activities far and wide. And more importantly, we, as users of the web, have to do a good job of protecting and educating ourselves against this menace.

Dominic Cook

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