CRITICAL REVIEW

Article Analysis: A Spook Speaks

Article Analysis: A Spook Speaks

Introduction

The article selected for critical review is “A Spook Speaks” which was published in the economist. This article is about business and cyber crimes. Cyber crimes have become an increasing cause of concern for the business sector. Computer frauds and hacking activities have become a constant war with these intelligent criminals. There have been instances in which they have been able to capture the complete systems of Internet service providers and even threatened them to destroy their system and to distribute all the credit card information. In certain cases, there have been employees who sabotaged the whole system. Internal employees having access to critical files have also caused trouble in certain cases. Dealing with an outsider as well an insider is a hard to juggle task. All the major banks and financial institution are deeply worried about electronic money, open-access World Wide Web sites, investment dealings worldwide and the threat of those breaking into secure systems. Cyber attacks, like phishing, are bait in which innocent and mostly new users get caught. Cyber-infrastructure is protected by advanced security systems, but as these systems become more complex, it increases the danger of eruption. This paper critically reviews the article.

Critical Review of the Article

The article reflects the grave problems that are faced nowadays by the different business organizations. Cyber crimes and fraud is a major concern which causes the industry millions of money. According to Jonathan Evans, the director-general of MI5, numerous intellectual properties has been lost due to the criminals. Recently, America's Federal Trade Commission sued Wyndham Worldwide, a hotel group, alleging that security failures at the company in 2008 and 2009 had led to the export of hundreds of thousands of guests' payment-card account numbers to a domain registered in Russia. Millions of money was lost due to the cyber crime. Cyber attacks have now become a major problem in our society (Ghosh & Turrini, 2010).

While initially information security was seen as a technology problem that can be addressed via sophisticated hardware and software solutions, increasing number of security breaches proved that this is indeed mostly a people problem. The damages done by the criminals take far longer to undo than it took the criminal to commit crimes. Victims can suffer a lot once their identity has been stolen and abused (Easttom & Taylor, 2010). The hard-earned money of the person is lost for no reason at all. Apart from the financial aspect, peace of mind is also stolen along with the identity, as the victims have to go through a lot of trauma as a result of the crime. The proportion with which the crime has grown has also caused a dent on the economy. This is the reason it is significant to determine different ways of mitigating the cyber attacks.

Among large scale businesses that get affected includes the financial sector other than individuals. Electronic banking services have been greatly affected by these criminals who are euphemistically ...