New
readers of this publication will have much sympathy for hacker Gary
McKinnon who was recommended for extradition to the US by a judge
last week. But the wise will question the effect McKinnon’s
potential sentence will have on those tempted to follow in his
footsteps.
McKinnon has
admitted hacking into US military networks for a period of almost
two years, claiming he did so to find evidence about anti-gravity
and free energy devices found in crashed UFOs.
His defence is
that he was just a bumbling computer nerd, who became addicted to
hacking. He has also claimed that since he could log on to top
secret networks without a password, the US military had no security
to begin with.
It is a defence
that will be rehearsed in the appeal courts and possibly all the
way to the Home Secretary’s desk. But while the prospect of 60
years in a US jail might act as a deterrent to old-school
bedroom-based hackers, these people should be last millennium’s
problem.
The biggest
hacking threat to businesses today comes from organised crime. Some
89% of UK firms were the target of e-criminals last year, according
to research conducted by the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit. The
latest Department of Trade and Industry Security Breaches Survey
puts the cost of computer crime at £10bn a year.
The ability of
fraudsters to skim the details of chip and Pin cards and siphon
millions from consumers’ bank accounts and the attempt by a gang to
use a keyboard logging Trojan horse to spy on desktop computers at
Sumitomo, the Japanese banking group, to steal £220m in 2005 show
where the real risks lie.
In this world
McKinnon is small fry and harsh punishment for him is unlikely to
have any deterrent effect on those behind the growing tide of cyber
crime.
Read leader article: Punish real cyber
villians