As cyber-crime is becoming more sophisticated, the FTC threatens spyware distributors with prison sentences

InfoWorld reports that “[t]he latest research report from McAfee’s Avert Labs paints a frightening picture for enterprise IT administrators and end-users, predicting continued maturation of cyber-crime and the technological means being used to carry out external attacks.” 

CNetNews.com writes that “[a]t a morning Senate Commerce Committee hearing [in Washington DC], Federal Trade Commissioner William Kovacic said most wrongdoers in the spyware arena ‘can only be described as vicious organized criminals.’” Kovacic explained that “‘many of the most serious wrongdoers we observed in this area […] are only going to be deterred if their freedom is withdrawn,’ so it’s important for the FTC to collaborate on its cases with criminal law enforcement authorities.”

According to the Washington Post, “[t]he recent buzz about security threats posed by iPods to corporations has reinforced the need for IT managers to treat these devices like any other removable media that employees with malicious intent can use to extract sensitive data.”

Inc.com points out that according to a new national Wells Fargo survey, “[n]early 20 percent of the nation’s small employers would go out of business without the Internet.  Of some 600 small businesses polled, two-thirds said they use the Internet for business purposes several times a week, if not daily, while a third said losing it would have a major impact on their operations.”

The International Herald Tribune reports that “[v]enture capital heavyweights have placed high-profile bets on China’s YouTube-inspired video-sharing Web sites, but now appear to be moving on to online companies with more traditional business models.”  The reason for this is that the more popular the top video-sharing sites become, “the more bandwidth costs tend to balloon as traffic gets heavier.”