Crime-terror nexus is biggest cyber threat

UPI reported: The gravest threat to U.S. cyber security now comes from the potential for collaboration between terrorists and organized crime, experts say.

"The bad guys are geeks now, too," said Robert Bagnall, a former military intelligence officer who specializes in computer security for small and medium sized companies.

Bagnall told emergency managers and business continuity professionals in Washington that a growing black market in "commodity hacking" -- hackers for hire -- meant rogue states and transnational terrorists could buy compromised data and computer security penetration skills quite cheaply on the open market.

"Commodity hacking is becoming available to organizations that aren't large and well funded -- because they don't have to be," Bagnall told the CPM East conference.

Bagnall said hacked data, like credit card numbers and system passwords, was available for sale on Russian Web sites, and increasingly organized crime groups "are selling information, they're trading and sharing information."

Crime-terror nexus is biggest cyber threat [Washington Times]

related:
Parasite: The new word in malware [ZDNet-Robert Bagnell]
Panel Discussion and Q&A On Information Security [Robert Bagnell]