According to the UK’s National Criminal Intelligence Service, organised international gangs are using “cyber crime” to steal or extort milli...

According to the UK’s National Criminal Intelligence Service, organised international gangs are using “cyber crime” to steal or extort millions of pounds from British business, particulalry from the banking sector. In its annual threat assessment, the agency published a survey of 203 major companies, 83 per cent of which had fallen victim to cyber crime costing £195 million ($350 million) in total. The NCIS report warns that Britain's position as a world leader in online banking could be jeopardised by the cyber crime wave which is mainly perpetrated by criminals in countries from the former Soviet Union, North America, the Far East and Brazil. Computer programs known as “Trojans” that seem benign, but infiltrate computer systems to obtain bank account details, passwords and PIN numbers are used by the criminals. Groups of compromised computers are known as “botnets” and can be managed remotely. According to NCIS, this enables the criminals gangs to operate on “a massive scale”. On one estimate, the number of botnets had increased 15-fold in the last six months. There has also been a massive increase in incidences of “phishing”. Authentic-looking e-mails trick recipients into giving up personal financial information. In November 2003, 21 “phishing” attacks were reported. This rose to almost 2,000 in July 2004.