In 2008, cyber-crime was at an all time high with hundreds of millions of dollars stolen. According to security experts, a string of data breaches orchestrated principally by a handful of organized cyber-crime gangs translated into the loss of hundreds of millions of consumer records last year, security experts say.

The size and scope of the breaches, some of which have previously not been disclosed, illustrate the extent that organized cyber thieves are methodically targeting computer systems connected to the global financial network.

Forensics investigators at Verizon Business, a firm hired by major companies to investigate breaches, responded to roughly 100 confirmed data breaches last year involving roughly 285 million consumer records. That staggering number — nearly one breached record for every American — exceeds the combined total breached from break-ins the company investigated from 2004 to 2007.

In all, breaches at financial institutions were responsible for 93 percent of all such records compromised last year, Verizon reported. Unlike attacks studied between 2004 and 2007 — which were characterized by hackers seeking out companies that used computer software and hardware that harbored known security flaws — more than 90 percent of the records compromised in the breaches Verizon investigated in 2008 came from targeted attacks where the hackers carefully picked their targets first and then figured out a way to exploit them later.

One hacking group, which security experts say is based in Russia, attacked and infiltrated more than 300 companies — mainly financial institutions — in the United States and elsewhere, using a sophisticated Web-based exploitation service that the hackers accessed remotely. In an 18-page alert published to retail and banking partners in November, VISA described this hacker service in intricate detail, listing the names of the Web sites and malicious software used in the attack, as well as the Internet addresses of dozens of sites that were used to offload stolen data.

Source: Washington Post