Measuring the black web

Big numbers and online crime go together. One well-worn assertion is that cybercrime revenues exceed those from the global trade in illegal drugs. Another nice round number is the $1 trillion-worth of intellectual property that, cybercriminals snaffle annually.

It is hard to know what to make of these numbers. Online crooks do not file quarterly reports. In the absence of figures from the practitioners, experts tend to fall back on surveys of victims, often compiled by firms that sell security software. These have a whiff of self interest about them: they are the kind of studies that get press released but not peer reviewed.

A paper by two researchers at Microsoft shows why: because losses are unevenly distributed. Most people never have their bank accounts raided by cyber criminals, but an unfortunate few do, and lose a lot. This means that per capita losses, which the surveys calculate before extrapolating to a national figure, are dominated by a handful of big online heists. Errors in the reporting of such infrequent crimes have a huge effect on the headline figure.

The few researchers who have observed cyber criminals in action are sceptical about the industry’s estimates. They tracked around 20 outfits that use spam to advertise illegal online pharmacies. First they secretly monitored the spammers’ payment systems. Then they obtained logs from one of the servers that power the illegal pharmaceutical sites. They even ordered (and—perhaps surprisingly—received) some of the non-prescription drugs on sale.

Their findings suggest that only two of the 20 or so operators bring in $1m or more per month. The criminals behind fake security software appear to reap similar reward. Their study puts the annual revenue of each criminal group at a few tens of millions of dollars.

The security industry claims that some spammers make millions every day. The security industry sometimes plays “fast and loose” with the numbers, because it has an interest in “telling people that the sky is falling”.

None of this means that the threat of cybercrime can be written off as pure invention, or that people should turn off their spam filters. But in the grand scheme of criminal threats, hacker kingpins do not appear to be on a par with Colombian drug lords—even if the security industry would wish it otherwise.

Reading Comprehension

I) Define the main idea of the text:

1. The interest of security industry.

2. There is no threat of cybercrime.

3. The global trade of drugs.

4. The profits gained by online crooks.

II) Look through the text and say whether these statements are true, false or not mentioned (T/F/NM). Correct the false ones:

1. A lot of people have their bank accounts raided by cyber criminals.

2. Online crooks usually provide the security industry with annual reports.

3. Each criminal group gets tens of millions of dollars.

4. The researchers investigated 20 cases of spam usage.

5. Experts usually rely on surveys of victims often compiled by firm selling security software.

6. The headline figure of cyber crimes is 1 million of dollars per month.

Vocabulary

I) Find the words in the text that mean the same as following:

1. to get something that you want, especially through your own effort

2. to watch something or someone carefully

3. a set of questions that you ask a large number of people in order to find out about their opinions

4. to make a list, record etc, using different pieces of information

5. money that a business or organization receives over a period of time, especially from selling goods or services

6. the thing or things that someone owns

II) Match the English words with Russian equivalents:

1. kingpin a) грабить
2. well-worn b) главное лицо
3. snaffle c) быть на уровне
4. whiff d) утверждение
5. to be on a par e) избитый
6. heist f) запах

Sentence Completion

Fill the gaps in these sentences using the words from the list:

to raid payment system quarterly online crooks infrequent annual spam filters criminal headline figures

1. At first researches checked the spammers’ ……….

2. The study shows that the ……….profit of some ………. groups is really high.

3. The ………. are effected by ……….crimes.

4. It’s obvious that hackers do not represent ………… reports.

5. Nowadays people have their bank accounts …………. by ………….

6. It’s out of the question that people must use …………

Дата добавления: 2015-08-03