Some researchers have said due to the economic downturn and tech layoffs we will see a steady rise in cybercrime.
As the economy sinks into a deeper hole that no one can quite climb out of right now we start to see even more tech layoffs resulting in a rise in cybercrime. Recent reports have come in finding a good amount of credit card and PIN codes have been stolen in a fashion that Finjan, a web security firm, said is "commoditized". Finjan also warns of a sharp rise in cybercrime in 2009 due to the current economic conditions where persons may financially benefit from stealing data or committing other cybercrime acts over the internet.
In no way are we saying people holding an IT or technology job are criminals. Let's face it, people that are laid off from a technical type job have the skills to make money over the internet but it is not always legal. Many of them just want to make it through the month without missing their bills and have resorted to joining the cybercrime community.
Some time ago we talked about how a worse economy could be in the hands of cybecrooks and even how a new exploitation kit was released by cybercriminals. What does this have to do with the mass number of layoffs in the technical field lately? It has everything to do with it. Not only have some of the jobless techie's resorted to cybercrime but hackers have made it easy for them to join their likings. Exploitation kits or crimeware toolkits are commonly sold by hackers to, you guessed it, newly unemployed techies. Included in many of these "kits" are the tools needed to spam many computer users in an effort to spread malware that seeks out people online for monetary gain.
As more layoffs at tech firms happen across the world will we see an increase of cybercrime on a major scale? Data from security researchers will support this theory although it cannot confirm that the data is proof for disaster. Do you think cybercrime will remain out of control in the year 2009?