Defending against cybercrime

Cybercrime has evolved from a few small groups hacking and phreaking for fun and prestige into a complex, highly organized hierarchy involving leaders, engineers, infantry and hired money mules. Cybercrime is now a well-organized multi-billion dollar business with specialists whose sole purpose is to create new ways to breach networks and steal data. Cybercriminals are innovative in their approach to stealing information and money and remain a step ahead of the security industry with a range of different infections targeting different areas, from credit card and banking information to personal identifying information. Efforts to slow down the growth of cybercrime, including defense in depth and botnet and underground online stores takedowns, have not been effective and the cyber-security industry is struggling to keep pace with the variety of cybercriminal attacks being perpetrated.;This research explores the current cyber security strategies to defend against cybercrime, the costs of defending against cybercrime and the costs to industry and consumers of cybercrime. Although the number of cybercrime attacks is growing and the sophistication of the malware used is improving most cybercriminals are inexperienced and have limited technical skills. They depend on a minority of highly skilled cybercriminals who create many of the cybercrime tools, products and services used in these attacks. An alternative approach to combating cybercrime is discussed. The objective of this approach is to make it unprofitable for the majority of cybercriminals to mount attacks by directly targeting the skilled cybercriminals and the cybercrime forums used to sell their wares. This would slow down cybercriminal innovation allowing the cyber security industry to keep pace and make the perpetration of cybercrime more expensive for the majority of cybercriminals.