Cybercrime appears recession-proof

Online crime, especially phishing and malware-based fraud, continues to occur in high volume despite the recent economic turmoil.  In recent weeks, both the FBI and FTC have issued warnings about cybercriminals taking advantage of the uncertainty in the economy.  “One thing we've seen is financially based cybercrime is recession-proof," says Darren Mott, supervisory special agent for the FBI's Cyber Division. "With [this] changing economy, the only thing that changes is the way they go about obtaining their information."

Internet Identity has seen no let up in website phishing attacks, while malware attacks and phone phishing attacks continue their upward trends.  While some of  the e-mail lures have been updated to reflect current events in the financial services industry, the vast majority of phishing sites continue to have content identical to those sites used earlier this year.

The FBI reports that it is seeing more spear phishing aimed at businesses that were hit hard by the economic downturn. "There has been an increase in attacks on specific individuals, such as CEOs and CFOs, because a lot of businesses are going under...that gives them more directed targets," the FBI's Mott says.