Cyber-Crime Gone Too Far

When it comes to cyber-crime, no organization is immune, as long as they are connected to the internet, they are subject to fall victim to cyber-crime. These crimes continue to cost the global economy about $445 billion a year as continue criminals expand their ability to steal money directly or turn stolen data into money.( Ashford, 2015)

A. Select three examples of where a company’s data security was breached from the outside.

1.

Company: TJX Companies Inc,

Date: December 2006

Impact: 94 Million Credit Cards exposed

Details: Hackers stole credit card data during wireless transfers, they took advantage of weak data encryption system and stole credit card data. This was possible because the company's network had no firewalls. (Armerding, 2012)

2.

Company: Stuxnet

Date: 2007 - 2010

Impact: Iran's nuclear power program was nearly compromised. This serves as a template for real world intrusion and service disruption of power grids, water supplies, public transportation systems etc. (Armerding, 2012)

B. What do your examples have in common?

In all of the above mentioned cyber-crimes, malicious software was used to breach fire walls, there is also a possibility of all the victimized companies having either had weak defensive systems or they took long before they upgraded their defense system.

More importantly, the attacks have sought to destroy assets, corrupt assets, deny access to assets and result in asset theft. Greed, malevolence, revenge or misguided intellectual challenge of creating havoc within large systems are other common motivators to such cyber attacks.(Lee-Fong, 2000)

C. What important lessons can the e-business community learn from these events?

Companies must ensure that tight security measures are taken to prevent cyber-crimes. First of all companies need physical security systems to prevent attackers posing as vendors or service providers from installing unauthorized software on the servers. (Lee-Fong,