Cybercriminals Are Adopting Corporate Best Practices

Orome1 writes: Cybercriminals are adopting corporate best practices and establishing professional businesses in order to increase the efficiency of their attacks against enterprises and consumers. This new class of professional cybercriminal spans the entire ecosystem of attackers, extending the reach of enterprise and consumer threats and fueling the growth of online crime. Low-level criminal attackers are even creating call center operations to increase the impact of their scams. "Advanced criminal attack groups now echo the skill sets of nation-state attackers. They have extensive resources and a highly-skilled technical staff that operate with such efficiency that they maintain normal business hours and even take the weekends and holidays off," said Kevin Haley, director, Symantec Security Response. "We are even seeing low-level criminal attackers create call center operations to increase the impact of their scams."

Relief! Finally!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I was very much worried about the cyber criminals. Despaired what/who could stop them.

Finally, relieved. Corporate best practices! If that does not kill their efficiency and agility, nothing will. Hope the also implement agile rally scrum thingies complete with kanban board and daily dissing of waterfall development. Seven layers of managers telling the lone code monkey what to do, quarterly story point estimates, progress reports, burn down charts, ... the works. So much time will be spent in measuring progress and in planning meeting, nothing will ever get done. Great!

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I was very much worried about the cyber criminals. Despaired what/who could stop them.

Finally, relieved. Corporate best practices!!

Yes! They will employ ITILv2 experts and Service Delivery managers to "improve" their business models,
Who could think of more expert types? :-)

Re:Relief! Finally!

[mlts]

I am not surprised. It can be asserted that malware is the best written software in existence today, because it had to be small, work flawlessly, and do its job well. Unlike most shops where "it builds, ship it" is the mantra, malicious software has to fly under the radar, or it will be detected and destroyed pretty quickly.

Re:Relief! Finally!

[PopeRatzo]

I am not surprised

Neither am I. After all, corporations have adopted criminal best practices for decades.

Nah

[s.petry]

Corporate Practices translated to Crime: Their Lobbying group will ensure that they never ever get prosecuted for stealing your stuff. They are calling it PHUCKU, or Political Harassment Until Crime Kills U.

Re:

[Lumpy]

Exactly! soon they will stop being productive and have meetings about meetings trying to decide when the next meeting should be held..

Re:Relief! Finally!

[Greyfox]

Funnily, none of those things on their own will actually kill your productivity. What will is jumping on the bandwagon of the month without giving everyone time to get used to whatever process you put in place. And the thing about organized crime is, if your manager is bad, you just kill them. So I suspect that a lot of organized criminal enterprises might actually end up being nicer workplace environments than many of the companies that I've worked for in the past. And although their retirement packages might suck, they couldn't be any worse than corporate America right now.

Seven layers of managers?

[khz6955]

"Seven layers of managers telling the lone code monkey what to do" ref [slashdot.org]

Haaa, that got me laughing, I only had the three managers myself :)

Re:

[Barlo_Mung_42]

Just came in to make sure something like this was the top comment. Right then, carry on.

Difference

[Anonymous Coward]

As the criminals become more like tech companies and the tech companies become more criminal, we soon can't tell the difference.

Re:

[TheReaperD]

It'll be easy to tell the difference: Who pays their brib.. er.. campaign contributions to the politicians and who doesn't.

Question

[The-Ixian]

Do low-level criminal attackers create call center operations to increase the impact of their scams?

I don't think this summary answered that question adequately.

Re:Question

[wardrich86]

It'd still be better than calling Comcast

Re:

[TheReaperD]

Yea, they actually wan't to provide good service to their "customers," unlike Comcast.

Re:

[Krishnoid]

High-quality call-center based customer support? That should trivially distinguish them from the legitimate businesses.

Re:

[wardrich86]

wa't

Re:

[TheReaperD]

That's what I get for typing on no sleep. *sigh*

Re:

[rs1n]

It'd still be better than calling Comcast

I'm pretty sure a significant number of people would put Comcast in the same category as criminals.

Re:

[Pseudonym]

Female cybercriminals still only get 77% of the loot that male cybercriminals do. Equal takings for equal crimes, I say!

Great, now even cybercriminals file TPS reports

[Irick]

Where am I going to fantasize about escaping the mediocrity of corporate existence now?

As they say..

[Virtucon]

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

that's why it's called Organized Crime

[turkeydance]

and the boss still sucks.

Re:

[Tablizer]

There must be some interesting forms at such orgs:

Strike Category:

1. (_) Intimidation Only:

1.1 (_) Fake horse head in bed
1.2 (_) Real horse head in bed (high budget only)
1.3 (_) Install Windows 10 on home PC
1.4 (_) Smash car:
. . . . [_] Windshield [_] Body [_] Tire pop

2. (_) Injury:

2.1 (_) Strike to Knee: # of strikes: _____
2.2 (_) Gut hit: # of hits: _____

3. (_) Finish Off:

3.1 (_) Cement galoshes
3.2 (_) Swimmin' with d' fishies
3.3 (_) Car "accident"
3.4 (_) Other: ____________________

Re:

[ole_timer]

Yes, but he has a bat in his hand.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

this can't really be APK, there's no mention of HOSTS files anywhere.

Re:

[TheReaperD]

From what I've read, not all those lapses are on accident. Phishers and money scammers make more money on the stupid and greedy who are willing to overlook glaring logic errors either because they don't understand them or they want a payoff so badly they ignore them. It cuts down the amount of effort wasted on the non-gullible.

Since when do noisy call centers full of

[Nutria]

Indians speaking horrible English "increase the impact of their scams"?

Unless by "increase the impact" they mean, "make it an obvious scam"...

Re:Since when do noisy call centers full of

[duke_cheetah2003]

Indians speaking horrible English "increase the impact of their scams"?

Unless by "increase the impact" they mean, "make it an obvious scam"...

Oh I dunno, having Indians being their call center goons would legitimize them even more, since they'd be on par with actual legitimate businesses.

Re:

[Nutria]

The legitimate Indian call center employees that I have spoken to have pretty good command of English with a -- while noticeable -- mild accent.

The Indian scammers who call me are definite rejects based on their strong accents and inability to do anything but poorly follow a script.

Re:

[Nutria]

"James Ellis from the Dish Network" (he just called me) does not have a strong Indian accent.

But what will low-level criminal attackers do?

[blind biker]

Will they create call center operations to increase the impact of their scams?
I mean, will they create call center operations to increase the impact of their scams?

Re:

[TheReaperD]

I work in software for the marijuana industry, and everyone leaves at 4:20. First tech job I've ever had like that.

FTFY

Maybe the luddites are right

[davidwr]

Maybe there is something to be said for keeping some of your "in house" data only on paper or at least on disconnected computers to make infiltration and ex-filtration harder.

Yes, there is some data that you must have accessible from the outside. For example, if you are a doctor's office your current clients will want to be able to cancel or change future appointments without having to talk to a live human being. But you don't necessarily need all of your former patents' complete medical and payment histo

No need to worry.

[malditaenvidia]

It's okay, John McAfee will keep us safe.

I'm having definite Sneakers flashbacks...

[Etcetera]

Cosmo: There I was in prison. And one day I helped a couple of nice older gentlemen make some free telephone calls. They turned out to be, let us say, good family men.
Martin Bishop: Organized crime?
Cosmo: Hah. Don't kid yourself. It's not that organized.

Cybercriminals adopt ITIL

[sbjornda]

Cybercriminals adopt ITIL. What could possibly go wrong?? Or do I mean, what could possibly go right?? I'm so confused.

--
.nosig

Cybercriminals adopting corporate best practices?

[khz6955]

Dear slashdot, whenever I see 'cyber' in a sentence I always wonder what technically clueless idiot got paid to type it up.

Not really a surprise.

[idbeholda]

If you're doing something illegal, you'll take every measure to avoid being caught in the act.

Methodologies

[suupaabaka]

It won't be long til we see PRINCE2 for Cybercrime, with strong focus on ITIL methodologies.

Only PM professionals with 5+ years experience in cybercrime need apply.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

nothing changes

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite cartoon:
A teenager saying to dad: Dad, i'm gonna make a carrier in organized crime field.
Dad: Government or private sector?

redundant redundancy

[Rudisaurus]

Does anyone actually edit Slashdot article summaries anymore? Both the 3rd and 7th sentences of the summary read, "low-level criminal attackers are even creating call center operations to increase the impact of their scams". I think we all got the point the first time it was made. Does anyone actually edit Slashdot article summaries anymore?