back to article What exactly is it that infosec miscreants get up to? A quick overview

If corporate IT infrastructures are a battlefield, then the cybercriminals are putting up a good fight. Last year saw some nasty breaches. Anthem Insurance, which lost nearly 80 million records, and the US Office of Personnel Management, which lost 21 million records after failing to encrypt its records. Cybercriminals are …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I was waiting

    For a Bitcoin mention in there. Bitcoin does not make it easier to commit crime.

    If I had 1000 bitcoin, stealing credit card information would be just as hard as it would be with 100 bitcoin.

    It doesnt make it harder to track down the criminals either.

    Using bitcoin doesnt remove all the activity from the log files of a breached server. If the admin didnt have logging switched on it wasnt some rogue gang of bitcoin going down there forcing him to turn it off. Though the idea of being "hash bashed into submission" is amusing.

    All bitcoin does is exactly what it was designed for. Making financial transactions easier and more secure.

    If people adopted more modern methods of transacting cash (not specifically bitcoin, but anything that isnt a mag strip / number line / 4 digit pin protected plastic target there would be considerably less theft of this nature.

    Credit cards and debit cards...now theres a cause of the problem. Anything that requires you to hand over more info than is necessary is a criminal construct in and of itself.

    Blockchain technologies only expose the public key of the wallet you used, you can have as many of those as you please.

    Nobody can get your cash with that alone. The crims can raid all the databases they want then.

    Storing card info is archaic and unnecessary.

    We as engineers have a duty to get behind and involved in anything that may protect our dumb and feckless users. Bitcoin may not be the answer but something in its spirit may be.

  2. regadpellagru

    "If people adopted more modern methods of transacting cash (not specifically bitcoin, but anything that isnt a mag strip / number line / 4 digit pin protected plastic target there would be considerably less theft of this nature.

    Credit cards and debit cards...now theres a cause of the problem. Anything that requires you to hand over more info than is necessary is a criminal construct in and of itself."

    Totally agree. Every single person I know buys online with their real VISA number, which, in average, will only expire in 3 years ! Then, they're surprised at suspect activities on their account ...

    And 100% reliable online paiements have been available for decades, like e-cards, that expire the next month, and only work for a given amount of money.

    Oh, and the article could also mention, in the cybercriminal category, companies like sneaky bugger Amazon, who tried to charge 49 E on my account to renew, without asking or notification, my premium subscription. For weeks, I noticed one of my active cards was refusing this 49 E charge as it was exhausted on another transaction. Then, 4 weeks after, I received the only email on this matter: Amazon informed me premium was disabled, which was all good and well since I never wanted to renew.

  3. Anonymous Blowhard

    "Bitcoin does not make it easier to commit crime."

    Correct, in the same way that the existence of banknotes doesn't make it easier to commit crime. But it does make it easier for people (in this case criminals) to trade anonymously as the Bitcoin is a digital payment that isn't linked to a bank account that can be traced and frozen by the cops.

    The advantages you point out of mechanisms like Bitcoin over credit cards are obviously understood by technologically savvy criminals, so that's why they use them.

    As you point out, the real enticement-to-steal here is the existence of databases full of credit card details, weak security employed by many organisations is just icing on this cake.

  4. Alister

    A high degree of specialization leads to a constant cycle of reinvention and innovation.

    This is another DevOps story, then?

  5. lampuki

    "light leakage"

    So, a new marketing term has just been coined? I work infosec, I've searched online and while I can guess what they mean and am aware of the methods used to track down anonymous services this doesn't make it any easier for others.

    Later some C level exec picks this up and we are running wild with modus operandi and everything else you can find in the modernized version of the marketing bullshit generator.

    New concepts and attacks vectors should be properly explained upon the first use.

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