happygeek 2,411 Most Valuable Poster Team Colleague Featured Poster

The quick answer is no, at least according to well respected security guru and Chief Research Officer at F-Secure, Mikko Hypponen.

The slightly longer answer is that dealing with organised crime on the Internet is not as easy as you might imagine, and bringing cyber criminals to justice can be a huge challenge. The lack of online borders coupled with the lack of local resources make tackling international Internet crime is hugely frustrating for all concerned. Apart from the criminals it would seem.

F-Secure quote examples as varied as that of Jeremy Jaynes, a well known US-based spammer whose conviction was overturned by the Virginia Supreme Court after it ruled the state Anti-Spam Law was in violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution and so impacted upon his right to free and anonymous speech. Or how about the New Zealand teenager, who despite having pleaded guilty to authoring banking Trojans netting millions of dollars for an organised criminal gang walked free from court?

Mikko Hypponen argues that international courts and law enforcement agencies are struggling to stem Internet crime tide, and the formation of an Internetpol is the way forward. "We should consider the creation of an online version of Interpol that is specifically tasked with targeting and investigating the top of the crimeware food chain" Hypponen says.

"Even if the locations of online criminals are discovered, the investigations rarely uncover the full scope of the crime. The victims, police, prosecutors and judges cannot see the full picture and therefore don't know the true costs of the crime" Hypponen continues, concluding "if we do not act now to fight the source of crimeware, it will continue to grow stronger and threatens to destroy the current model of Internet business, banking and commerce."