Cybercrime overwhelms drugs

Cybercrime has potentially bigger profit than illegal drugs, the London Police says.

The Telegraph: Cybercrime could become more lucrative than drugs, police chief warns

According to the media, one-fourth of the organized criminals in Britain is estimated to engaged in financial crime. Their profit reaches 10 billion GBP in a year. But it is uncertain how much amount of the benefit is generated from cybercrime.

Financial crimes are not so harmful to the public, compared to the illegal drugs, although both are unacceptable.

Fraud on the internet is easy to commit. It takes very little cost. And it is difficult to disclose the evidence of the crime, especially in the case the criminals are using servers in a foreign country.

Even I have been attacked by some kinds of fraud, as I wrote in the past. Also recently, I received emails from someones disguising Samsung and a famous investment bank in terms of the network account. There are innumerable numbers of junk mails other than them.

My past entry: A spam e-mail mimicking Google

My past entry: I will be a trillionaire

It is quite easy for me to distinguish these tricks. However, it is important that a few people may be deceived in the world. For the criminal side, sending an email to millions of people takes almost zero and time and money. If one of the millions gives the money, this business will be successful.

Many major companies are subjected to this fraud. Most of them release a warning to the users. But these caution is unlikely to reach customers who are indifferent to the risk of fraud. Such users tend to be victimized.

Furthermore, criminals usually disguise their intention of exploitation not being noticed by the victim forever. I heard that in many cases the victims did not know they are tricked even after they lost a large amount of money. Of course, they do not report the case to the police. Thus, fraud is not a crime until it is proven to be so. And the internet has made it much easier than the past to conduct it.

It is extremely difficult to deal with this kind of crimes. Some cyber security software can detect potentially harmful emails and websites, but not perfectly. The police in each country are keen to investigate this matter. Technical development is important to chase the criminal on the internet. In addition, international contracts are essential to control the cybercrime. The internet has been broadened beyond the nations. Why not will the police so?