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Move Over, ID Theft...Cybercriminals Turning to Corporate Targets

by Lee Bains on November 13, 2008 at 08:25 AM



Since identity theft has become old news, cybercriminals are looking to corporate data theft as their new gravy train, USA Today reports.

A host of online corporate theft has descended on the United States recently, and hackers have found their way into everything from financial data and factory blueprints to product designs.

Most often, according to experts, the culprit for such security lapses is employees' use of free Web-based e-mail and instant messaging clients, in lieu of those provided by the company. By hacking into these relatively vulnerable programs, attackers can find -- in addition to sensitive data transmitted via these Web-based platforms -- corporate e-mail addresses and log-ins, enabling them to infiltrate the business's database.


One particularly shocking horror story relates to one corrupt Chinese businessman named Samson Wu who, in 2000, purchased data that was stolen from the Florida lighting manufacturer Super Vision International (now called Nexxus Lighting), including factory blueprints and business strategies. According to Super Vision founder Brett Kingstone, Wu built "an entire clone" of Super Vision's factory, spending $1.4 million dollars to construct in six months what it had taken Super Vision 10 years and $10 million to design and build.

While this information is startling, we lowly worker-bees are even more shocked by another factoid -- dealing with identity theft -- featured in the article: "Credit card account numbers that once fetched $100 or more, for instance, can be had for $10 or less. . ." [From: USA Today]

Tags: crime, data theft, DataTheft, safety, security

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