What is the difference between cyber crime and traditional crime?

Simply put, cyber crime is a crime committed using technology and the internet.

Although cyber crime is often discussed as a separate entity to traditional crime, it is carried out by the same types of criminals for the same type of reasons.

Cyber attackers range from professional thieves, criminal gangs, disgruntled employees, professional competition, activists, disillusioned youth and even state adversaries. 

Common motivations behind cyber attacks today include:

• Financial gain through ransomware, scams, online fraud, and data theft 
• Insider threats from employees or contractors with internal access, whether through malice or negligence
• Ideologically or politically motivated attacks such as disinformation campaigns, activism, protest, or nation-state objective
• Notoriety and challenge, often driving underground hacker groups or individuals seeking visibility through high-profile breaches
• Reputational damage aimed at eroding trust among clients, partners and the general public

Common techniques used to execute cyber attacks today include:

• Social engineering such as phishing, AI-powered deepfakes, and other impersonation attacks that bypass security controls by exploiting trust, for financial gain or to cause damage or disruption
• Reputational damage through data leaks, website defacements, or disinformation campaigns 
• Espionage and intellectual property theft involving covert access to confidential information, client data, or strategic plans
• Supply chain attacks by targeting third-party vendors to infiltrate secure environments
• Disruption of critical infrastructure, including industrial system tampering, or interference with public service

The methods that cyber criminals use to gather data and perform an attack is comparable to physical ‘traditional’ crimes. For example, let’s compare how a criminal gang might go about breaking into a bank to steal money against how a cyber criminal gang might go about breaking into a computer network to steal data.

So apart from the use of technology what is the difference between cybercrime and traditional crime?

The Scale

Attacks can be conducted on a scale not possible in the physical world. A traditional bank robber may only be able to hit one or two banks a week, a cyber-attack can target 100s if not 1000s of sites at once.

The Reach

Attacks can be performed from anywhere in the world; they can be performed anonymously and within jurisdictions where the consequences of those actions may not, or cannot, be addressed by the criminal justice system. Attackers are also able to extract far more data digitally than would ever be possible in the physical world. For example 1 gigabyte of data is approximately 4,500 paperback books. Think of how many gigabytes of data is held on a system, hackers can extract this within a matter of minutes.

The Speed

Attacks are conducted at machine speed; a criminal can write a piece of code that can target multiple sites in minutes.

Perception and media effect

There is another part of the cyber threat to be considered, the public and media perception of cyber crime. When large financial institutions have been hacked the media has often wholly apportioned blame to the organisations rather than the criminals, this would not be the case in a physical bank robbery.

What can you do?

In order to combat the threat of a cyber-attack, organisations need to have in place the appropriate security frameworks, education and training plans and technical controls appropriate to their business.

Security management frameworks can range from large all-encompassing standards like ISO 27001 or to control based entry level standards like HM Government Cyber Essentials Scheme or industry-specific requirements like the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). All security management frameworks are concerned with ensuring that businesses identify critical information assets and assess the threat and vulnerabilities to them and ensuring appropriate risk management procedures are in place.

These standards are tested and evaluated through a variety of methods that may include Vulnerability Assessments, Penetration Tests, Red Team Tests and Open Source Profiling alongside annual reassessment and certification.

A variety of proactive technological controls and tools can be put in place to help an organisation proactively defend against cyber-attacks and react quickly and effective in the event of an incident. Network security monitoring service like protective monitoring can help organisations detect, recovery and prevent security breaches. The breadth and depth of these solutions will depend on an organisation’s size and risk appetite. A professional Information Security Consultant can assist and organisation in determining this.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, organisations must ensure that appropriate education and training is provided to employees to ensure that they have the appropriate knowledge and skills to operate the tools, procedures and security frameworks.

How PGI can help

PGI offers a range of services to help you gain a deeper understanding and more control over your cyber security, including our Cyber Assurance as a Service offering, which enables you to call on a full team with specialist expertise for your information and cyber security requirements. 

Contact us to discuss your requirements.