Mob Making Cyber Moves: Organized Crime Versus Disorganized Defenses

The news that organized crime is now a bigger cyber-havoc player than independent hackers isn't surprising: as Willie Sutton said of banks in the last century, the Net is now "where the money is."The director of the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENIAS) warned of a "digital 9/11 recently.

The statement, from Andrea Pirotti, held its hopeful points, Pirotti noting that so far defenses have held the attackers "under control," but also sounding the alarm that a more unified approach to network defense and attack-response is needed.

And therein lies the rub: persuading multiple national governments and government agencies to work together on an issue that raise immense privacy and business regulation issues as well as technical challenges.

From an American domestic perspective, we can see much of the same thing -- agencies and officials and organizations moving in different directions (as witness last week's TVA security lapse announcement)

For all that, the agencies -- and on the business side, companies -- involved are at least aware of the issue. The longest presidential primary season in memory hasn't seen any of the candidates -- or the press pursuing them -- pay more than lip-service to cyber-security issues, if that.

Too bad -- and it's the sort of thing that remains too bad until it's too late.