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Why Cyber Crime is Easy No.1

Here are some facts about cyber crime that should make you think:

  • Information theft, loss, or attack is now the prevalent type of crime against organizations.

  • According to AV Test 137.5 million new malware samples were identified in 2018.

  • A 2019 Webroot Threat report found that about 93% of malware observed in 2018 was polymorphic, meaning it has the ability to constantly change its code to evade detection.

  • The same Webroot report found that over 50% of devices that got infected once were re-infected within the same year.

  • According to an RSA report over 60% of online fraud is accomplished through phones and tablets.

  • The UK’s National Crime Agency says that cyber crime now accounts for more than 50% of all crimes in the UK.

These facts illustrate just how large, and growing, the cyber crime threat really is. One reason for the explosion in cyber crime is simply that it pays. Criminals know that there is little prospect of them getting caught or prosecuted and the financial rewards can be huge.

But there are other reasons why so much cyber crime occurs and one of those is because it is so easy to do. Let me prove that to you with a simple example.

As large numbers of workers around the world have been forced to work from home they have turned to on-line services to help them communicate with colleagues and customers. The criminals know this and they have moved very quickly to exploit the situation.

One on-line service that has seen large growth in its user base is Zoom. Suddenly there is a huge number of users new to an unfamiliar service and often doing things in a rush. This for the criminals is a very happy hunting ground.

What the criminals have been busy doing since the start of the year, and especially in the first weeks of March, is to create fake Zoom websites. Lots of them. Take a look at the chart below, created by Check Point, that shows the number of domain names being registered that contain the word Zoom.


Zoom Domain Reg Jan-Mar 2020
Source: https://blog.checkpoint.com/2020/03/30/covid-19-impact-cyber-criminals-target-zoom-domains/

Does it not seem odd that all of a sudden a large number of new domain names appear that all happen to include the word Zoom in them?

This is why cyber crime is so easy.

It is extremely simple and cheap to register new domain names and it seems that nobody bothers to check them or question what they are going to be used for. With just a few mouse clicks you or me could register a domain name intended to fool a Zoom user. What makes this worse is that many of these domain names will be registered by organisations based in the western world and not in places like Russia, India or China.

It seems that profit comes before anything else for many domain registrars so they happily take the money and create the new domain names without any effort to police them. Little wonder there are so many fake Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Zoom and other sites when getting a fake domain name up and running is so very easy and quick.

The criminals are laughing all the way to the bank.

If you happen to be using the Zoom service then I would advise you to be on your guard as the criminals are clearly out to try and make you another victim. Trust me, they won’t have to try very hard to find them.

If someone, anyone, made it harder to register a domain name by checking to see if it was a legitimate name then it would become more difficult for the criminals to create the fake websites that ensnare so many victims. Unless and until that happens it will remain incredibly easy for the criminals to perpetrate these sort of crimes.

My source of the cyber crime facts, with many more, can be found here:

https://www.comparitech.com/vpn/cybersecurity-cyber-crime-statistics-facts-trends/

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