World's Top 5 Cybercrime Hotspots

A Russian crime ring is suspected of obtaining access to a record 1.2 billion username and password combinations. 

Cyber security experts say this enormous data breach is just the latest evidence that cyber crime has become a global business—one that, including all types of cyber crime, costs the world economy an estimated $400 billion a year. Here’s a look at the global hotspots for these cyber criminals.

Watch the video.

Information courtesy: time.com

What is Cyber Inheritance?

The sheer volume of information that is created online today is mind-boggling. And as the intellectual property rights in this information grow, the value of these assets is growing too. A very relevant question then is what happens when the owner of these digital assets passes away? Who inherits the assets and how?

Your digital assets may be downloaded software, passwords to various accounts including online banking accounts as well as other downloaded content. Who gets access to this content after you die?

One solution that is being offered is by Google for all Google run accounts. Here users may specify which of their trusted contacts will be permitted to access their various accounts after their death. Before this announcement, though, this access was not permitted due to privacy laws.

Digital property is not like tangible assets in the fact that they cannot as easily be bequeathed to heirs. The law in this area is unclear on how these assets are to be passed on to loved ones. Services like Legacy Locker permits its users to store online passwords so that executors and personal representatives can access online accounts following their death. Other cloud based services do not permit this unless given specific instructions upon death.

So, one good idea is to make sure that you leave clear instructions in your Will about who is to receive your digital assets as well as a personal letter to the executors of your will with the details of the usernames and passwords. Also, instructions must be left in your Will to your service providers about what is to be done with the assets and whether the accounts should then be shut or continued.

Silver Spaniel Loose - New Avatar of the 419 Scam

A trademark of the original Nigerian 419 scams was the badly written email. The email usually appeared to come from some widow who was ready to pay a staggeringly obscene amount of money to get her dead husband's money out of the country. All that she needed was some help from someone willing to put in some initial investment to get things moving. 

Once the victim paid, the fraudsters took the money and disappeared.

The original simple fraudsters have now graduated to more advanced malware based attacks which have now been dubbed "Silver Spaniel" attacks. These attacks use Remote Administration Tools (RATs) like NetWire and DarkComet which allow the fraudsters to remotely take over control of the target machines.

Anti-virus protection on the victim's side is not entirely effective as the attackers use tools like DataScrambler to repackage the RATs and avoid detection by anti-viruses. 

Using these more effective tools, which are fairly easily available on underground avenues, these attackers have now moved from targetting clueless individuals to medium sized businesses also.

5 Must-Knows about Cyber Insurance

What is Cyber Insurance?

Cyber Insurance is a specific insurance policy meant to protect you from all sorts of cyber incidents, security breaches, network downtime, damage to your cyber assets and other such interruptions to your business.

When do you need Cyber Insurance?

Your company  may be insured against fire, theft, earthquakes and even other Acts of God. If, however, the first virus attack or DoS (that's Denial of Service) attack is going to irreversibly affect your bottom line, then you need Cyber Insurance.

Another aspect of Cyber Insurance is Cyber Liability Insurance. This protects you from liability when you publish matter on the Internet. With even small businesses making their e-commerce presence felt on the Internet, businesses are exposed to several new kinds of legal liabilities. Cyber Insurance would also protect you from such liability claims.

Why do you need Cyber Insurance?

Your traditional insurance policy may protect your physical assets. So, if lightning strikes your office building and destroys some computers, you will probably be reimbursed for the computers. But that does nothing to mitigate your data loss. That is why you may need Cyber Insurance.

What do you need to consider while buying Cyber Insurance?

First, learn to treat cyber insurance like your traditional insurance. Understand your cyber assets and then look carefully at what your policy would cover. Do a self-check. Cyber Insurance policies will be given only if your current security measures meet certain criteria. So that should basically cover anti-virus, regular updates, firewalls, taking frequent and regular backups, no illegal downloads or pirated software etc. As you can see, these are things that you should be taking care of as it is.

What is the Indian Cyber Insurance scene like?

A recent report by Marsh India has found that 55% risk managers believed a cyber attack to be their largest concern. When they were asked what consequence of a cyber attack worried them most, 43% felt it was  damage to their reputation, 30 % felt it was financial loss, 16% were worried by the prospect of legal liabilities, and 9% about regulatory action or loss of license.

Despite this, as per the report, only 21% had stand alone cyber insurance.

Moral of the story - take a good, long look at what you stand to lose in the event of a cyber attack. Then, insure to secure.

$445 bn - Cost of Global Cyber Crime?

A new report has estimated the cost of global cyber crime to be $445 bn.

The report estimates that the cyber economy assimilates about $2 tn to $ 3 tn annually. Of this, 15-20% is destroyed by cyber crime. The report - Net Losses: Estimating the Global Cost of Cybercrime - emphasizes the finding that if cyber crime were treated like a business, the annual revenue generated by it would be ranked 27th in the world - higher than that of nations like Singapore, Austria and Denmark!

While, economic heavyweights like US, Japan, China and Germany faced the worst losses - $200 bn - India also earned the dubious distinction of being called the global 'ransomware' capital of the world.

Ransomware is a type of malware which restricts access to the computer system that it infects, and demands a ransom paid to the creator(s) of the malware in order for the restriction to be removed. 

Full report...