Financial institutions across the world could face a new wave of global recession because of a rapid rise in computer crime.
"The scale of cyber fraud now being experienced by the world's banks is high enough, potentially, to trigger another global financial crisis," says a source from the KCS Group, an international security firm.
The world's banks have built a wall of silence around their losses, fearing a dramatic loss of confidence in the banking system if the true scale of the cyber criminals' operations were ever made public.
The banks will not admit to the size of the problem for fear of damaging their reputation and there are therefore no accurate figures available. But there is hard evidence that the problem is far worse than has so far been reported and is now affecting banks across the globe with potentially crippling consequences.
There is a growing danger that, by keeping their heads in the sand and making no concerted effort to tackle the problem, the banks have foolishly given organised criminal groups (OCGs) an opportunity to make themselves unassailable with their new-found wealth.
Although there are no reliable statistics available for cyber fraud, security experts at companies such as the KCS Group now believe that the cyber hacking of banks is far more lucrative for organised crime than the global trade in illegal drugs.
Cyber hacking has a number of close parallels with the international trade in illegal drugs. It has grown from a cottage industry into a global business. And, according to security experts, cyber criminals use individuals known as "mules" to transfer money in much the same way as drug smugglers use carriers, also known as "mules", to transport drugs.
The difference is that, where the drug mules transport relatively small amounts of narcotics across borders, cyber mules regularly use personal accounts to hold and transfer millions of dollars siphoned from banks and their clients.
No comments:
Post a Comment