Organized cyber crime rings are wreaking havoc because they're vastly more organized and better funded than Canadian law enforcement, say security experts. "The criminals are having a field day - we need to increase our efforts exponentially to tackle this effectively," says Ian Wilms, president of the Canadian Association of Police Boards (CAPB).

This imbalance is creating huge incentives for organized crime to get involved in e-fraud, hacking, phishing and other scams. These international rings can buy the best technology with stolen credit cards, but law enforcement doesn't have the budget or manpower to keep up with changing technology even at the federal level, let alone at the cash-strapped municipal level, says Wilms.

A related and disturbing trend is organized cyber crime's tendency to approach young people looking to make a quick, easy buck via chat rooms in colleges and universities, he says. "Organized crime is big business, and just like big business, they recruit the best and brightest. There are clear indications that smart young people are being attracted to this area."

Posted by Annette King at 12:04

If you're like me, this year you plan to do more shopping online. Analysts such as Forrester Research predict that U.S. online retail sales will reach $33 billion in 2007, a 21 percent increase over last year.

Employers must face the fact that much of this shopping takes place from the office. Two years ago, BusinessWeek reported that 58 percent of people do most of their online shopping at work, and I'm sure not much has changed since then.

At the same time online retailers celebrate, so do online criminals. A new breed of criminal is emerging, which we call Pirates of the Web. These crafty thieves hide out in dark corners of cyberspace and attack from multiple angles, stealing valuable personal information. Even savvy computer users fall victim to their scams.

McAfee Avert Labs says that one in four Americans are exposed to online identify thieves. While compromising an individual's personal identity is bad enough, if it happens at work, it can put an entire business network at risk.

Posted by Annette King in Adware, Spyware and Trojans at 12:02