Russian cybercrime-buster Eugene Kaspersky has an unusual hobby. The globally recognised cyber-expert makes a living collecting viruses from the internet. "Different people collect different things: some collect butterflies, some collect stamps. I collect viruses," he says, with a shrug of the shoulders.
The anti-virus guru was interviewed in Sandton on Tuesday where he was attending IT Web's conference on security. He predicts that by the end of the year there will be at least 20 million viruses swarming the internet. It is for this reason, he says, that internet security is of paramount importance. "Criminals are becoming more sophisticated and are able to steal from bank accounts, hijack data, encrypt text and take over online services that play on the stock exchange.
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"We have seen people play the stock exchange on their own sites and hack into other people's websites just so they could make more money," he says. "To protect computers from the likes of these characters is a high-end job, which we cannot do without knowing what cybercriminals are all about."
Kaspersky was in a jovial mood as he described his work and plans to make South Africans more security conscious while using the internet. "It's like a virtual game: sometimes we have parts of the puzzle from analysing the spam, but this is no good without understanding the business."
| 'Different people collect different things' |
Worm and Trojan were two of the worst viruses in recent times, causing chaos and deleting data on computers they have infected throughout the world. Last year there were about 2 million viruses on the internet. It is going to get worse, he warns, affecting the bottom line of business across the world.
"We have developed a project to stop spam easily, but to get to know the workings of a business can take us up to six months," he says.
Cybercriminals often owned an illicit part of the puzzle that others wanted and they bought and sold data to each other without knowing their identities.
"It is not organised crime like the Mafia, but cybercrime is getting more organised and people are more commonly dealing in stolen data and money. But where there is any interception of money, the culprits use a proxy to access the funds, so they can avoid detection by the police.
"Cybercriminals stay in the shadows. They are people who don't know each other and who don't trust each other," he says.
After a relatively calm 2007 with computer attacks increasing by a mere 400 percent, Kaspersky says the number of malicious attacks this year will increase by 1 000 percent.
Globally, spam e-mail accounted for 88 percent of the total e-mail traffic in the first quarter of 2008. Kaspersky says the first-quarter results were disturbing because the volume of spam is rising and junk mail is becoming more criminalised.
He says his company has intensified its efforts to fight these threats. "But we can only do what is humanly possible, the rest is up to our robots - the automated systems in place to stop viruses in their tracks," he says.
Kaspersky will be intensifying efforts four-fold to combat the rise in cybercrime. Internationally known as an enemy of cybercriminals, Kaspersky says he does not feel threatened.
"I feel quite safe, although in the virtual world we are under attack every day, whether it is from viruses or bad comments. Otherwise, I am safe because IT criminals stay away from their victims. They prefer to use only the internet," he says.
He says his interest in fighting cybercrime was stoked during the internet's infancy in 1993 when "hooligans" were writing viruses to take advantage of what was a new phenomenon. "It was a fun time for me trying to develop the antidote for these viruses. There were four or five of us at the time, and we did not receive salaries," he says.
Cybercriminals were able to steal virtual characters from online games and sell them elsewhere. "There are a lot of sophisticated people out there benefiting from criminal activities on the internet," he says.
Asked how long before a new computer is prone to become infected by a virus, Kaspersky, says: "You are safe if you don't switch it on."
He says that in most cases consumers have to download anti-virus software from the internet and this is when infections take place. Internet addicts are safe as long as they surf trusted websites such as media houses, but were inviting trouble by surfing sex or porn sites. "Go to a porn site and you will be infected in two clicks," he says.
Kaspersky says the growth of the internet has led to his hobby becoming a global business, with him as founder and chief executive of the world-renowned Kaspersky Lab, which started in Moscow before spreading across Western Europe, Latin America and Europe. Now they are focusing their attention on Africa. "We are in touch with police authorities in various countries, helping them crack down on cybercrime," he says.
The laboratory has been operating in South Africa over the past three years, establishing contacts with several government departments and private sector conglomerates keen on using the anti-virus software. "We are the number one choice in anti-virus software in various parts of the world," Kaspersky says.
Maxim Shirokov, Kaspersky Lab's regional director for the Middle East and Africa, says Kaspersky's first visit to South Africa highlights the growing importance of the region in the Kaspersky Lab's business structure.
"Although South Africa is not high on the list of affected countries, cybercrime is having an effect on businesses and, alarmingly, many analysts suggest that South African firms are not treating it as such and are much more vulnerable than they realise."
Despite the huge growth in the amount of business being conducted online, many experts suggest that organisations have been slow to realise just how vulnerable they and their customers are. "Protecting your organisation from cybercrime has become a critical business imperative," says Shirokov.
"Cybercriminals used to be individual hooligans showing off their prowess, but the fact that it is so profitable, so easy to do and comparatively low-risk has made cybercrime an extremely attractive felony and, as a result, it has mushroomed into a giant global industry that is unlikely to stop growing anytime soon."
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