Bob Tallent
The Synergy Group
24th November 2011
The first conference of the Irish Reporting and Information Security Service – IRISS-CERT, in the D4 Berkeley Hotel focused on providing people with an overview of the current cyber threats facing businesses in Ireland and throughout the world and what they can do to help deal with those threats. They also launched their first annual report on the spread of cybercrime in the Republic of Ireland. According to the report there were 441 security incidents reported to the organisation from 1st January to 31st October 2011, of which just over 92% related to websites being broken into by criminals to host phishing scams.
96% of those reports were suspected of being controlled by organised criminals with the primary motivation being financial.
The hacktivist group Anonymous, were involved with about 1.5% of issues reported. Separately, Anonymous has declared war on Facebook and is encouraging hackers to attack the site.
According to Wikipedia,
“hacktivism is the use of computers and computer networks as a means of protest to promote political ends. The term was first coined in 1998 by a member of the Cult of the Dead Cow hacker collective. If hacking as "illegally breaking into computers" is assumed, then hacktivism could be defined as "the nonviolent use of legal and/or illegal digital tools in pursuit of political ends". These tools include web site defacements, redirects, denial-of-service attacks, information theft, web site parodies, virtual sit-ins, typosquatting and virtual sabotage. If hacking as "clever computer usage/programming" is assumed, then hacktivism could be understood as the writing of code to promote political ideology, promoting expressive politics, free speech, human rights, and information ethics through software development.”
According to Brian Honan, Director of IRISS-CERT, the volume and type of incidents they deal with on a daily basis are a clear indication to Irish businesses that cybercrime is a real threat to systems, businesses and the economy. He said that businesses need to share information with the community so we all can learn about these threats.
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