Exploited ‘Workers’ Could be Key to Stopping Cybercrime
Hacking isn’t the glamorous lone wolf occupation people imagine. Cybercrime rings exploit workers in low paying, dead-end jobs—and that makes them vulnerable to law enforcement intervention.
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Cybercrime isn’t the glamorous lone-wolf occupation people imagine. It’s a big business that uses workers in a low-paying and dead-end jobs that leads to burnout, and makes cybercrime rings vulnerable to police crackdowns, reports the Wall Street Journal. Cybercrime has grown into a huge industry based on the division of labor and specialization. Interviews with workers revealed complaints about burnout. “After [running a cybercrime service] for almost a year, I lost all motivation, and really didn’t care anymore. So, I just left and went on with life….,” says the head of one cybercrime ring.
Research from the Wall Street Journal found that tactics focusing on arrests and harsh sentences for the leaders of cybercrime enterprises seem simply not to work, as when major players are arrested, new businesses move to take their place within a matter of days. They found that when authorities target supporting staff, whom the cybercrime industry depends on, the effect was much greater. Their services become unreliable when the cybercrime infrastructure is attacked.
