NCJ Number
207290
Journal
Journal of Financial Crime Volume: 12 Issue: 1 Dated: August 2004 Pages: 44-52
Date Published
August 2004
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This paper identifies the threats to a globalized, internet-driven economy posed by weak e-commerce security controls in China that can be exploited by organized crime, terrorists, and antiglobalists.
Abstract
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) maintains that e-commerce is the core of the future of economic globalization. The OECD also advises that the success of this emerging trend depends on consumers and businesses having secure, reliable, and verifiable computer network services. Simultaneously, the OECD opposes the global regulation of e-commerce because it may impede the global economic participation of countries with young e-commerce systems that would not meet regulatory standards. China is such a country, where participation in the global economy is increasing while there are evident flaws within China's computer infrastructure. These security weaknesses are ripe for exploitation by transnational crime groups in their efforts to launder their criminal proceeds and divert e-commerce transactions into their own coffers. This has already occurred in Russia, where the Russian Mafia purportedly operated 40 percent of private business, 50 percent of banks, and 60 percent of state-owned companies. Terrorists are also constantly scanning the infrastructure of global capitalism to find vulnerabilities for attacks that will weaken and paralyze the economies of their enemies. Anti-globalists, i.e., those who oppose the trend toward an exploitative global capitalism, have also vowed to cripple and impede this trend. As China aims to become a major player in the global economy, it must attend to the security of the economic, political, and financial systems that are the foundation of its future. 116 references