Summary

The threats individuals face through illegal means of compromising their personal information is greater today than it has ever been. The most obvious threat consumers face is from hackers. If you had asked a typical consumer 10 years ago what a hacker was, the odds of getting a clear answer would have been pretty slim. Today, though, consumers have been educated the hard way in understanding how the online world threatens them at the same time that it benefits them. With the increased functionality of the online community, hackers have numerous new access points to consumer information and methods of attacking consumers. The news stories of how thousands of credit cards get stolen or some inventive way a hacker stole and used someone's identity have brought awareness of technological crime into every household. A CIO KnowPulse poll of 450 chief information officers (CIOs) conducted in late 2001 found that most (88%) of the CIOs of major companies did not think existing security measures of government entities are skilled enough to handle cybercrime. Many believe better training and exclusive organizations dedicated to combating cybercrime are needed.

For consumers, the difficult threats to understand are how businesses can use the online world to illegally compromise your privacy. The legal means to exploit you on the Internet that were discussed in Chapter 4 might make it seem as if illegal access was not needed to your data, but businesses can further exploit you by taking advantage of technology and the lack of laws to find more inventive ways of using your information. The fraud capability that has developed with the Internet has expanded the reach of a small company that seeks to deceive people with some scam in a local community to anyone around the world. The ability of businesses to come and go on the Internet after they have collected consumer information and money is easy with the anonymity inherent in the online world.

The final serious threat consumers face that we have not really seen prior to the global economy is threats by governments that can target individuals, businesses, and governments. Anyone who is politically motivated or any government that needs a hidden weapon can use the Internet to target its enemies. How governments should secure their people in the online world is still open to debate. This is probably a problem that will not be solved anytime in the near future. The very question of governments taking an active role in protecting and policing cyberspace is still being debated. We have seen that both governments intervening and governments ignoring protecting the online community have drawbacks and can be damaging to consumers. Government monitoring and forceful compliance of security standards has privacy advocates up in arms, yet citizens need more protection than industry self-regulation has so far provided.

Collaboration between countries to track and capture cybercriminals has not happened, but we can see the need for it. It is also easy to see that too much control by the government can be stifling to the development of e-commerce. Where the middle ground is in government intervention when it comes to cybercrime is yet to be determined. But prosecution is necessary, and to have prosecution, we need practical, enforceable laws. We can't really say what exactly those laws should be in this book, but hopefully examining what is currently being done and what is proposed will shed some light on how the government should proceed.

The threats we face are because of a lack of understanding of the technologies being used by both professionals and consumers. A police squad to patrol cyberspace is necessary, but we do not have the right people trained and do not have cooperation between governments to build a unified force that can track attacks across the globe. Rapidly changing technology means constant learning and updates of knowledge, software, and hardware. The vision to see how technology will change the way we operate on a daily basis and anticipate future attacks is sadly lacking by individuals, businesses, and government.