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One can get 15 years jail for hacking

Date: September 08, 2004
Source: Computer Crime Research Center
By: Dmitri Kramarenko

Microsoft was forced to spend 1bn of US dollars on protection of their Windows operation systems from hackers, viruses and "phishers". The global software giant was frightened by unprecedented attacks of hackers on the UK-based online gambling companies, weren't they? Cyber blackmailers extorted companies' top-management demanding sums up to $0,5mn. The Englishmen sell the notion that they incurred 49mn of GBP losses. Hacker action was carried out from Russia: Moscow, St.Petersburg, Balakovo and Saratov.

Russian Department "K" (a department on fighting high tech crimes) revealed 4,295 crimes in the sphere of high technologies for the first 6 months of 2004, Chief of the Department "K" press center, colonel of police Eugene Yakimovich said. According to his information, the analysis shows that 16% of malefactors who acted in the sphere of "computers" were young men aged between 18 and 25 years, 70% of them had high or incomplete high education. The main share of crimes relates to illegal access to information and using of malicious software. It was noted that officers of the department were quite successful in their struggle against crimes of such kind.

Eugene Yakimovich believes that the reason of growth in cybercrime lies in free public access to the Internet. "Do we or do we not want anything, the number of crimes in this sphere is growing: the country is becoming more high tech, and, naturally, the number of scammers is adding in", Eugene Yakimovich said. It appears that 6,500 persons presently using the Internet in Russia are considered by police as potential criminals. We must admit, in fact, that the Internet users statistics do not cover those who buy prepaid Internet scratch cards.


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2005-09-02 07:43:08 - Very nice blog. Mira
2004-09-12 23:00:13 - Well, Microsoft may have spent a billion... Bob Toxen
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