McAfee produces six-part docudrama on cybercrime

[hotbatch]

via The Tech Herald:

McAfee has produced a six-part online film that highlights the constant fight between criminal hackers and the security experts who go toe-to-toe with them, while also highlighting the story of one victim caught in the middle. The Tech Herald was offered the chance to view all six parts and, after two screenings, we can announce this was money well spent on education.

The story, directed by Seth Gordon, starts in Denver, Colorado. In Denver, we catch up with Chris Roberts, a third-party cyber forensic expert as he sits outside a house, demonstrating how an open wireless network can provide a criminal with all the basic information needed to commit any number of online crimes.
“So basically in under a minute or so, we now have the ability to access, potentially access, any one of the six other computers on their network,” Roberts explains while sitting outside the Denver home.

“Any files, any systems, in their home in under a minute. Well, minute -- minute and a half,” he adds. “This is a machine that’s been pulled off of [the shelf at] Best Buy, brought home plugged in, with a wireless router plugged in, then ‘Yea! We’ve got a home network. Sweet!’ So have I... I’ve got your home computer too.”

The project was originally conceived as a series of standalone episodes. However, as the film-makers dug deeper into the experience of victims, they realized the film’s focus had to be on the complex stories of real people doing normal online things, only to be horribly violated by ruthless cybercriminals.
As Gordon began the research phase of the film, he identified a woman living in Oregon, named Janella Spears, who was a victim of one of the largest and most elaborate e-mail scams on record. Spears’ story of losing more than $440,000 USD, and the dire effects it had on her family and marriage, became the central theme of the film series.

“People are inundated with suspicious emails and spam, but typically they view these as annoyances, not serious threats. We produced the Web-based film to make cybercrime real for people, and to help consumers understand why they need to take precautions,” said David Milam, chief marketing officer at McAfee.

i'm doing some work on this campaign - thoughts? on cybercrime and internet security?

[Jeffbx]

I'll watch that for sure... those guys are impressive (on both sides, really).

However, I'm not the least bit convinced that there's any threat on a home network. There are WAY easier methods of getting large batches of credit card numbers & even ssn's than hacking into individual home machines, hoping they store personal info on it, and sifting through all of the crap to find anything.

[hotbatch]

I'll watch that for sure... those guys are impressive (on both sides, really).

However, I'm not the least bit convinced that there's any threat on a home network. There are WAY easier methods of getting large batches of credit card numbers & even ssn's than hacking into individual home machines, hoping they store personal info on it, and sifting through all of the crap to find anything.

I think it depends. The woman depicted in the series who was scammed out of $440,000, was specifically targeted - the phishers knew everything about her (family names, etc..) before they started their scam. While it may be easy (theoretically) to grab large batches of credit card numbers, having solid security on an individual scale is also important. It's an interesting story to watch.

[Jeffbx]

True, there are always more things to do to protect yourself, but I always get a kick out of people who are convinced that someone will hack into their machine & somehow steal their credit card number if they buy something from Amazon, but then don't think twice about handing their card to a waiter at a restaurant who physically carries it out of their sight.

I think if you're going to work on protecting yourself from identity theft, there are tons of things to worry about before your computer. The home computer is probably one of the least likely areas to be randomly targeted.

[gwilks98]

I'm skeptical any time a salesman makes a "factual" anything. It's good to raise awareness, but AV companies tend to inflate real danger.

[BlueTriangle]

All six episodes of the Stop H*Commerce series are now live, BTW.

I think if you're going to work on protecting yourself from identity theft, there are tons of things to worry about before your computer. The home computer is probably one of the least likely areas to be randomly targeted.

Identity thieves on the internet get more and more advanced every day. Check out this post from the Washington Post about a discussion at this week's Black Hat security conference about utilizing Web 2.0 properties for malicious purposes ("weaponizing the web"). People looking to exploit others are always ahead of the curve - it's important to stay informed and educated about those kinds of things, as consumers become more and more comfortable sharing information in the online space.