Taking care of business: Global plc versus the e-criminals

Cyber crime is a growing problem for corporates around the world - even those with good internal security policies.

The 'Love Bug' worm that recently hit businesses worldwide is the most recent example of online skulduggery, but incidents are becoming increasingly frequent.

Melissa still lurks in the memory, while distributed denial of service attacks as well as other forms of malicious code have recently taken their best shots at crippling Global plc.

Yesterday, ministers and technology leaders from G8 and other countries met in Paris to debate problems such as fraud and hacking. The answer, according to French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, is an international legal framework to police Internet crimes.

So, one law for all. But does one size fit all?

The problem with an international law is one of extradition and enforcement. What happens if a user in the UK posts something critical of the Burmese government on a UK-hosted Web site? Will this give the government in Burma extradition rights?

These are the issues that need to be debated and decided on before a one-size law can be introduced.

More realistic is an agreement of international co-operation. It would look towards effective policing within countries coupled with the support of the state to implement deterrents stringent enough to make would-be cyber criminals think twice.

But the initial work must come from companies themselves. According to research house IDC, a worryingly small percentage of online companies have fully fledged security policies in place. It is little wonder that when companies are hacked they are reluctant to report it.

Companies need to make themselves less vulnerable to attack, rather than rely on the state to pick up the pieces once the damage has been inflicted.