Looking at the statistics, February was a positively brutal month for workers being idled. There were 2,769 mass layoff actions putting throwing 295,477 out of work. Last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the ugly numbers. That's 542 mass layoff actions more than January and 57,575 laid off.
The BLS only obliquely breaks out what could represent IT workers as "professional and technical services." Not surprisingly, manufacturing bore the brunt of February's layoffs accounting for 47% of the unemployment claims, but IT folks could represent a small piece in all the 19 industry sectors that BLS follows. I wondered how many of those were IT people and what percentage might turn to cyber crime. Suffice it to say there's plenty of IT folks with little or nothing to do. The story explores how idled workers in China are turning to cyber crime. That out of work IT professionals turn to cyber crime should come as no surprise so the headline China becoming the world's malware factory on top of an IDG News service is to be expected.
Everyone needs to be vigilant (but not turn into vigilantes). Indeed, a story at Chief Security Officer cites a Symantec study that says 98 percent of organizations suffer "tangible loss" as the result of cyber crime (more than a little self-interest on Symantec's part should be noted). With the third variant of the Conficker worm set to strike on April 1, take the message of vigilance to heart (let's hope it's as tepid as Y2K). By the way, the BBC reported this morning that the U.K. Government is monitoring social networking sites like Facebook to "tackle criminal gangs and terrorists." That's vigilance of a controversial nature. It's obvious: the latter. Is this just another day in the cyber jungle or is the cyber crime problem exacerbated by the expanding ranks of the idled? So if you want to freshen up your knowledge of malware, check out the many primers on the subject. I like Wikipedia's or check out the Chief Security Officer web site.
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