Google expert says cybercrime is now 'big business'

folarin okunola

June 2, 2015 7:57 AM

You can now easily hire someone to hack a Gmail or Facebook account, or take down a website.

Google's first security engineer, Justin Schuh

Google engineer Justin Schuh has been working in computer security long enough to experience some key changes as regards how the industry has evolved.

A report by Business Insider says before Google hired him as its very first full-time security engineer for its Chrome browser back in 2009, Schuh worked for IBM, the NSA, and, way back in in 1996, the US Marine Corps.

"There’s a lot of money behind hacking now," Schuh told Business Insider in an interview. "And the attackers are getting better because there is money behind it — the motivation to succeed isn’t just personal gratification."

Schuh says that when he first started working security — and even up until 2009 when he started working for Chrome — many more hacks could be blamed on "hacktivists." Those people still exist, but there are many more bigger fish.

"Now, a lot of computer crime is very big business," Schuh says. "People are trying to build up large botnets so that they can either sell out access to them for denial of service attacks or use them to funnel spam. It really has become its own industry."

According to reports, famed internet analyst Mary Meeker recently noted that cyber attacks are growing bigger and faster than ever, and the hacker-for-hire market is growing just as much. It's now easier than ever to find people offering their (often illicit) services online.

You can hire someone to hack a Gmail or Facebook account, or take down a website. Schuh warns people who use Chrome to beware of third-party plug-ins, because over the years he's seen an increase in malicious third-parties tricking users into downloading things they shouldn't and thereby making themselves vulnerable to attacks.

Sources say Worldwide spending on information security was expected to reach $71.1 billion in 2014, and will increase 8.2% to $76.9 billion in 2015, according to Gartner research.

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