Earlier this year, the World Economic Forum met in Davos, Switzerland for their annual conclave. The topic of internet crime drew the attention of attendees, leading a panel to take a look at the issue of international cyber-crime .
One startling fact emerged from their look into fraud, identity theft and organized crime. According to the experts, which included representatives from Mozilla, McAfee and Microsoft, 2008 saw more internet-based crime than the preceding five years combined!
The WEF considers itself “the foremost global community of business, political, intellectual and other leaders of society who are committed to improving the state of the world.”
They go on to describe themselves as “an independent, not for profit organization that brings these leaders together to work on projects that improve people’s lives.”
The Davos attendees concluded that due to the organized criminal creation of large scale cyber-attacks, these incidents have moved beyond the mere nuisance of teenage hackers bored with nothing else to do, to a modern “organized criminality” that has grown well beyond garden variety vandalism.
The Forum estimates that internet crime alone, packs a whopping $1 trillion dollar price tag. With no clear consensus on how to attack the problem, the panel suggested solutions ranging from the creation of a nearly “totalitarian” worldwide governing body similar to the World Health Organization, to a diluted form of self-policing.
Perhaps an international outbreak of “willful blindness” has led us to this point. Hopefully the international criminal pleasure cruise that world economies are on, is headed for some immediate course correction.
