Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

FBI Sees Drastic Rise in Computer Crime

by Terrence O'Brien on October 16, 2008 at 03:15 PM

FBI Sees Drastic Rise in Computer Crime
The FBI is reporting that computer crime rose dramatically this year and is costing the U.S. tens of millions of dollars.

In particular, two types of attacks have seen an increase in popularity. Botnets spread malicious software via a virus. These Botnets turn infected PCs into unwilling participants in a network of PCs that "recruit" other computers and harvest data. The other type of attacks that have increased in prevalence are so-called "spearfishing" attacks, in which hackers send out official-looking e-mails to collect personal account data from employees of companies.

A third type of attack that is less widespread, but still seeing an increase in use is the "Pump and Dump" scheme, where attackers break into Wall Street firms and drive up the price of stocks only to dump them from their own accounts.

The FBI set up the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) in 2000 to track such attacks. The IC3 currently receives 18,000-20,000 reports of potential computer crime per month, which works out to around 650 attacks per-day. Even the most dangerous neighborhood in the world seems tame by comparison. [From: Reuters]

Tags: botnet, botnets, breaking news, BreakingNews, crime, fbi, hacking, ic3, security

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular