Professor Elam

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Internet Fraud

Everything is going well at your firm which has expanded into using internet customers to move away from traditional stores. Indeed, some 10,000 orders are coming in a day keeping your network of servers and telecom folks busy 24/7.  And then it happens.  Later investigation reveals that a hacker outside the USA, typically Eastern Bloc, has sent a virus to some 50,000 different computers having obtained their e mail addresses from various sites. By sending a keyword to those 50,000 computers, they all send messages containing a virus to your server network at precisely the same time.  The result, first one then another then every telecom agent you have is screaming that they have lost all customer contact.  Orders got to zero. Chaos reigns.  Then the phone rings.  A voice on the other end asks if you are aware of what has happened.  It is all your CIO, Chief Information Officer, can do to keep a civil tone in her voice.  The caller informs that for $50,000 everything will be made right again, rejecting the request will certainly result in much greater expenditure and who knows how much time the caller notes.  The $50K needs to be wired to various bank accounts in the Far East which in turn will of course be sending the money on quite a journey to various numbered accounts in countries that do not have extradition treaties or any other cooperation with the USA legal authorities. 

What do you do as the CIO? Pay up of course, the hacker is smart, he knows it is more economical to just pay and get back to work. It would not have been realistic to ask for millions, that would likely bring in INTERPOL and retaliation.  For this amount of money, can one hold up thousands of orders? This is the downside of the internet and why firewalls will be more important in the future.  While I was in my PhD program at UT Austin, a hacker retrieved thousands of Social Security numbers.  They claimed it was a hacker prank, but it could have been otherwise just as easily. 

Casino_royaleA new James Bond Movie will debut in November. The future real Bond will likely need to know a good deal more about Java script than whether the martini should be shaken, not stirred.

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One response to “Internet Fraud”

  1. Ambroz B. Avatar
    Ambroz B.

    Yes, while it might seem instinctual to immediately send $50,000 and get your business up and running again, it’s worth a closer look before making any like decisions. Before I would send $50k to someone I dont even know, how would I be assured that the virus would go away? That my money is not going to be dispensed and get nothing in return. Another question to consider is how do you know that the phone call is coming from the hacker and not someone within your own company trying to take advantage of the present situation. I would definately call the FBI or some private service that deals with viruses, and try to see what they can do first. While these measures are for dealing with the situation after it has occured, I think the best thing to do like you said, is to take preventative measures. Paying a little up front for business security could be well worth any future disaster that would result from negligent planning. Great topic Dr. Elam!

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