Top e-crimes
Soon, you may wish that’s all you had to worry about online. These days, hackers are going ever more covert in their effort to get their hands on a new goal: Money. “It’s gone from ego to economics,” said Marc Solomon, director of product management at McAfee Inc., the Santa Clara, Calif.-based security software provider. That desire for money rather than notoriety makes it harder to see the danger. Now, instead of a blanket attack trying to rope in as many victims as possible, fraudsters increasingly target small groups.
“Businesses and consumers have created a huge economic engine on the Internet. It’s attracted criminals,” said Todd Bransford, vice president of marketing at Cyveillance, an Arlington, Va.-based company that sells online risk management services to companies. “Now the issues on the Internet are all related to revenue, to separating consumers from their hard-earned dollar,” he said.