I read a post just this week here on hive about how 70% of people living in the United States had less than a $1000 in their account and the first thing i thought was that i wish our odds were that good over here.
Living in a developing nation i know how worrisome it is that so many people are having to struggle to survive, but imagine millions living under a dollar daily. It's not easy choosing between the lesser of two evils but in this case i know many who haven't had up to $1000 cumulative in their accounts all their lives.
Cybercrimes have grown rapidly with the advancement in technology that has come to be associated with modern day civilization. It's almost as if as people are working tirelessly to further improve the lives of everyone through technology, there are others who are looking for loop holes to take advantage of.
The most common cybercrimes where I'm from which has posed a lot of problems for security agency are dating scams and investment scams.
Dating scams are scams which target people (mostly online) with romantic relationships using fake profiles to build trust and eventually collecting huge sums of money before disappearing. This is especially f difficult for security agencies to track because most of the victims are from other countries.
The other which is investment scams is one that was quite popular and has been recurring over the years using different names and methods. These scams come in different ways, approach and methods, but the similarity is that they all promise what i regard as ridiculously high ROI in very little time.
Although people have fallen for this scam time and time again, it's the promise of huge returns amidst growing economic difficulty that has made it easier for these fraudsters to find victims because in this case it's the local population that's usually the target for this type of scam.
Trying to fix a BSOD issue
The underlying problem why these types of cybercrimes have continues to grow is unemployment. Most of the few convicted cases have been amongst the youths and continued unemployment means that many others are fast seeing it as a way to get rich quick.
Many of these fraudsters have a degree in computer and tech related courses and with no jobs, they channel these skills to the wrong use.
Having a few friends who work in various security agencies has given me an idea of the many problems which security agencies face in dealing with these types of crimes.
Firstly, technology is not as advanced in developing countries compared to developed ones. There's a very wide gap in the level of technology available to security agencies to monitor these crimes. Cyber-security is almost non-existent because to battle crimes involving technology, you need better technological gadgets.
Another reason is that most of the targets are usually the elderly who are not able to keep up with the continuous output of technology. They are easier to confuse with technological terms in order to part with information involving their finances.
My dad was almost a victim of this some months back but luckily i heard a bit of the conversation and was able to stop him before any more damage was done.
Using Photoshop
The need for cyber security is growing daily and many private organizations are beginning to come up to solve these problems.
The only problem is that their services costs a lot and as a person who has just been scammed of your money, you won't readily want to part with more money for an investigation.
The long-term solution is to better equip the various security agencies with both the funding for technological equipments and also further training to better tackle these crimes as they pop us using various methods.
I've been a victim of these investment scams in the past, so my experience has taught me the things to watch out for in most cases. Some people are not so lucky and are just sitting ducks waiting to be scammed again.
Images used are mine