DIGITAL DEFENSE: Fighting Back Against Cyber-crime

October 13, 2015

For the general public, the term “hacker” often conjures Hollywood-style images of socially awkward misanthropes bathed in the soft blue light of their tricked-out laptops. The truth of the matter is that computer hacking, data theft and other cyber-crimes have made their way out of the basement and into everyday life online. In the past decade, cyber-crime has become a lucrative industry that is very attractive to a more organized breed of criminal. In 2014, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center calculated that cyber-crime accounted for over $800 million in losses. As more and more of our lives and professions are transitioning to the virtual world, cyber-criminals are constantly looking for ways to exploit that relationship for their own gain.

“With spear phishing, the adversary might look at social profiles and friend networks. Maybe they learn that their target has a conference coming up, so they send them information about their registration,” says Tamara Denning, associate professor at the University of Utah’s School of Computing.