Bad Actor Investments in Research
July 8, 2016
Want to chop your overhead? One easy way is to eliminate research and development. Most US companies are thinking long and hard about buying start ups to get innovative opportunities. Bad actors like hackers and online thieves are taking a slightly different approach. Navigate to “Hackers Investing 40% of Crime Proceeds in New Criminal Technologies.” Now this 40 percent number may be fluff, but the idea is an interesting one. Instead of recycling old exploits which smart networking monitoring services are able to thwart, the bad actors are doing the Thomas Edison thing: Some innovative, some borrowing, and some rethinking old methods (hybridization).
The write up highlights the innovation angle, stating:
Nikolay Nikiforov, an official spokesperson at Russia’s Ministry of Communications, told SC that investment of crime proceeds in new attack methods is mainly due to a change of priorities by hackers seen in recent years whereby they are no longer solely interested in attacks on the private bank accounts of individuals, but mainly targeting the breach of correspondent accounts of banks.
I find the moving upstream angle an intriguing one. What happens when US companies chop off spending for research and development? Do these outfits become more vulnerable? One of my former clients commented that his firm would worry about hacking when something happened. Yep, that’s enlightened thinking.
Stephen E Arnold, July 8, 2016
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