Working with INTERPOL to fight cybercrime

By Allan Tan | May 4, 2009

A crime is a breach of a rule or law for which some governing authority may ultimately prescribe a punishment. That is the textbook definition of an illegal act. As famed comedian, Russell Peter would say it (quoting his father): "somebody gonna get in trouble tonight… somebody!"

Crime has no boundaries. It recognizes law in as much as it needs to know how to circumvent it to make a profit. Because crime has operates without boundaries, a global law enforcement agency was created specifically to tackle this unrelenting growth industry. They are the "International Criminal Police Organization" or INTERPOL.

And crime today can be very fast, as fast as electronics (speed of light) would permit it! If you skim through the INTERPOL website, 'financial and high-tech crime' is one of six crime priorities of INTERPOL.

Kathy Bostick

I recently touched based with Kathy Bostick, Senior Director, Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft Asia Pacific. Outside of her responsibilities to Microsoft in tackling security and Internet safety enforcement initiatives, she also leads a team building public-private partnerships with governments, law enforcement, inter-government agencies, non-government agencies, and academics developing global networks to tackle cybercrime and Intellectual Property crimes.

How fast is cybercrime growing globally?

Cybercrime is growing, but more importantly, it is evolving. Microsoft recently released its Security Intelligence Report (SIRv6), which gives a thorough view into the latest trends we are seeing with regard to online safety and security today.

My colleague Vinny Gullotto, general manager of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center pointed out that SIRv6 showed we continue to see an increase in the number of threats and complexity of those threats designed to implement crime at a variety of levels online. Vinny observed as Microsoft and the industry continue to improve the security of our products and people become more concerned about their online safety and privacy, cybercriminals are increasingly going after vulnerabilities in human nature rather than software.