Cybercrime is a geopolitical issue

Friday, November 14, 2008

As cybercrime has become ever more lucrative, hacking has taken on a geopolitical dimension, SC Magazine has claimed.

The website has noted that while billions of dollars is lost to organized gangs committing identity theft and fraud through data security breaches, national governments have also set up clandestine hacking units to access information silently.

It claimed that the Chinese government has set up dedicated infiltration and espionage centres and is now proficient in the art of cyberwarfare, while North Korea has also set up a hacking academy which churns out around 100 graduates each year.

And with such capital and manpower behind these organisations, it is vital that businesses adapt an enterprise network security policy that can evolve to counter ever-proliferating threats, the magazine claimed.

It called on organizations to address the root causes of data and network security breaches, rather than attempting to simply put up a fence against the burgeoning hacking industry.

In March of this year, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Pentagon said that China's ability to lever information and infiltrate global computer networks amounts to a very worrying military capability.