Cyber-attacks becoming more common
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
There have been many recent cyber-attacks on
public and private sector firms, which have bought fear to many UK companies
that this may happen to them too. It is believed that the individuals who are
attach company IT systems are professional fraudsters and criminal groups.
Companies do need to be wary of other activists or hobbyist hackers who may
also launch an attack.
Individuals in the technology sector were most
worried about the theft of competitive bid information and intellectual
property. On the other hand, organisations in the financial market are more
worried about reputational damage, interruptions of service for customers and
loss of customer data. This is why most financial institutions will advertise financial
crime jobs for employees
who will be solely responsible for investigating any fraud or criminal
incidents.
With so much time being spent on the internet,
then individuals are more at risk of a cyber-attack. Social networking
platforms such as Facebook or twitter provide an insight into what type of
person the individual who uses them is. A criminal can determine many things
from these platforms, such as whether you are male or female, where you live,
who you live with. Posting a Facebook status that clearly states you will be
out of the house for the evening is setting that individual up to be targeted.
Identity theft is a huge part of cybercrime and
criminals can get ‘secure’ online accounts and withdraw money from the bank or
perform various other illegal actions. This not only costs the individual a lot
of money and time but it will also affect the bank’s reputation which can be
detrimental for the organisation. There is a large number of methods on how to
carry out a cyber-attack and these will constantly be evolving and
strengthening. For those in charge of the IT security for a company or website
it can be a tough, yet interesting industry to work in. They will need to keep
up to date with the various ways that information and a site could be
penetrated. To find jobs within financial crime, it security go to www.Barclaysimpson.com.
