In 1999, Wired reported that a previously unknown group calling itself Hackers Unite claimed responsibility for a stunt, which allowed anybody with a web browser to access more than 50 million Hotmail accounts1
According to the article, it was the most “widespread security incident in the history of the web.” Like many well-publicised hacking incidents at the time, the perpetrators saw themselves as a cybersecurity version of whistle blowers.
It is testament to the attitudes of a more innocent online age that the group’s claim was accepted.
Nobody, not even on Wall Street, appeared to regard the incident, huge as it was, as anything more devastating than an embarrassment for Microsoft.
Two decades later, hacking is acknowledged as what it has always been: cybercrime.
It is no longer the preserve of techno geeks, “white hats” and thrill-seekers, but a recognised branch of organised ‒ and sometimes state-sponsored ‒ crime.
In 2017, Europol confirmed, for the first time, that criminal gangs – highly skilled and well-funded groups around the world – had added cybercrime to their repertoires2.
In the 21st century, cybercriminal gangs operate on much the same lines as any legitimate business.
They’re highly organised and made up of skilled specialists, each with a defined role. And they are working on an industrial scale. As an expert in cybercrime explains,
Cybercrime isn’t only a problem for well-known organisations like Facebook, British Airways and Exactis either.
According to the UK Government’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey 20183, 43 percent of businesses in general, and 72 percent of large businesses ‒ defined as those with more than 250 employees ‒ had suffered cybersecurity breaches during the previous 12 months.
Even charities aren’t exempt, with 19 percent of the non-profits surveyed indicating they’d been hacked.
Criminals know there is now potentially more profit to be made in the digital world than the physical world. Cybercrime is already a $1.5 trillion business4 with annual revenues exceeding that of Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google combined.
1) www.wired.com 2) www.europol.europa.eu 3 )Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2018 4) www.experian.com