A Brief History of Cybercrime and Cyberwarfare - The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering - page 385

An article discussing an unusual conflict was published by the INFOSEC In-
stitute on March 21, 2012. According to the report, a member of the hacker group
Anonymous was kidnapped in Mexico by a drug cartel called Las Zetas in October
2011. Anonymous published a threat on the web that it would begin to hack into
the bank accounts of the cartel itself and of cartel leaders unless the victim was
released. Anonymous also threatened to release cartel member names and also the
names of police and government officials who cooperated with the cartel. Making
these names public would not only lead to arrests but also provide clear targets for
rival cartels.
The victim was released but had a note from the cartel saying that it would kill
ten people for every name that Anonymous released. This dispute between cyber-
criminals and a drug cartel is an alarming indication that two of the largest forms
of crime in the modern world may be nearing a conflict that could harm innocent
civilians and cause collateral damages.
As can be seen from these examples of large-scale data thefts and hacking into
major companies, software is both a critical asset and a critical liability to personal
and corporate privacy.
The short list shown here of major attacks on corporations indicates that more
than 200 million U.S. citizens have had some of their personal data stolen: credit
cards, social security numbers, birth dates, email addresses, and so on. Many of
these thefts are probably due to either organized criminal groups or hostile for-
eign governments. Make no mistake: Cybercrime and cyberwarfare are going to
get worse before they get better.
To show the magnitude of cybercrime, a Google search on “arrests for cyber-
crime” in November 2012 found that in recent months, the Philippines had arres-
ted 357 people; China had arrested more than 10,000 people; an FBI sting opera-
tion with a website that seemed to buy and sell stolen credit card and identity data
arrested 26 people; another FBI arrest was for 12 people charged with stealing a
million dollars from Citibank; Bangladesh arrested 12 people; Turkey is trying ten
members of the RedHack group; and even Russia arrested eight people.
The important aspect of these arrests is that no matter in which country the ar-
rests were made, the crimes themselves spanned the globe and many of the targets
were U.S. companies and banks. Cybercrime is the first known criminal activity in
history where the perpetrator and the victim can be 12,000 miles apart at the time
the crime is committed.