United Against Cyber Crime

By Coenraad De Beer

Two heads are better than one. This is true and this is what we need to combat cyber crime effectively. There is much collaboration between organisations fighting cyber crime and it is important that these organisations work together to make the Internet a safer place for everyone. But there are still a lot of organisations that prefer to work alone and the abuse departments of well-known service providers are ignoring reports from the public and anti-cyber-crime organisations.

Why are people reluctant to report spam to the abuse departments of well-known e-mail and hosting service providers? Many people don't know that such departments exist and other are fed up with the ignorant approach of these departments towards reports from the public. What's the use of an abuse department if it doesn't do anything about the problems and abuse reported to it? But it is not only members of the public who experience these frustrations, anti-cyber-crime organisations have the same problem. These abuse departments eventually decide whether it is necessary to suspend the services of the guilty party or not, no matter how much evidence you provide to support your claim.

It revolves all around money, even the free services generate revenue for these companies. Free web site hosting normally involves adds of the hosting company displayed on the web site. Web sites involved in spamming activities bring in a lot of visitors which means the ads of the hosting company also gets exposure. Why would they want to terminate a web site that brings them a lot of revenue? This means that they are not enforcing their own terms of service, or you can even say their terms of service are only applicable to those who abuse the services without generating any revenue for the company. The problem becomes even worse when the abusing party pays for the services. Why would they want to cancel the account of a loyal client if it is going to cause revenue loss for them? What these companies don't understand is that they are making themselves less popular by being so reluctant to take action against these abusers and they will eventually only attract the criminals, effectively making them accomplices to these criminal activities. I believe most world-class companies will stare bankruptcy in the face if they terminate the accounts of all the spammers and unethical companies making use, or I should rather say, abusing their services.

Money is also the stumbling block for collaboration between cyber crime fighters. A web site owner will not want to refer visitors to a partner's web site without getting something in return. This is understandable to some extent because many anti-cyber-crime organisations provide their services free of charge and generate revenue mainly through advertisements. Without visitors they cannot make money from the ads displayed on their site. But is this enough reason to refuse a helping hand from a partner? A united force is much stronger than a divided force. The scammers love the fact that law enforcement agencies are not working together with anti-cyber-crime organisations to battle cyber crime. Spammers love it when e-mail and hosting service providers do not respond to the reports from anti-cyber-crime organisations and complaints from the public. Cyber criminals are laughing out loud at the divided force against cyber crime, battling to keep their heads above the flood of spam and scams reported to them on a daily basis.

The cyber criminals are constantly one step ahead of cyber law enforcement, it is time we turn the tides and stand united against cyber crime.

About the Author
Coenraad is webmaster and founder of Cyber Top Cops, leaders in Internet security, prevention of online fraud and educating users about online scams and malicious software.