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Sigh... sigh...Cyber: Paying the price

Editorial Type: Comment     Date: 09-2014    Views: 1299   






Economic espionage and cybercrime can severely jeopardise Internet stability and global online commerce

In this issue, we focus a great deal on cybercrime, because it is exercising the minds of many enterprises as its reach extends ever wider and its perniciousness intensifies.

One recent estimate of the cost of cybercrime to the UK put this at a staggering £27bn per annum ('The Cost of Cybercrime', a report authored by business and technology consulting firm Detica, in partnership with The Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance in the Cabinet Office). A significant proportion of this cost comes from the theft of IP from UK businesses, estimated at £9.2bn per annum, though the real impact of cyber crime is likely to be much greater. The main loser - at a total estimated cost of £21bn - is UK business itself, says the report, which suffers from high levels of intellectual property theft and espionage.

According to another recent report, issued by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), Aaron Shull says that cybercrime policy requires a conceptual reorientation to be viewed as a "threat to the global economy, not to individual states." Doing so will help enhance the international cooperation needed to prevent long-term financial drawbacks and enhance trust in electronic commerce, he argues.

The report, 'In Global Cybercrime: The Interplay of Politics and Law', examines domestic laws and recent cyber interactions between China and the United States, particularly the Night Dragon attack and 31-count indictment against five Chinese government officials by the US Department of Justice, to highlight the practical difficulties and political will required to effectively prosecute cybercriminals. Shull notes, however, that the coordination needed at the international level is unlikely to be forthcoming in the near future.

"The fact that a number of governments routinely engage in economic cyber espionage and cybercrime erodes digital trust within the larger stakeholder community," he states. Worse still, these online attacks have "the potential to destabilise and erode relations between governments", as well as undermine consumer confidence and cause companies to lose profit and suffer financially.

None of this is good news for any organisation looking for national and international leadership in the fight to combat cybercrime. Without such levels of collaboration, the proper safeguards that are needed to protect businesses in the UK and elsewhere will not be forthcoming. As Shull points out, effectively interdicting acts of international cybercrime is not simply a legal challenge; it is an inherently political one.However, in a world where the words 'trust' and 'government' are rarely to be found side by side, the prospects of such mutual aid becoming reality do not look at all promising.

Brian Wall
Editor
Computing Security
brian.wall@btc.co.uk

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