Ever since the internet became mainstream, we have been hearing warnings about hackers, spammers and other renegades of the online world. The internet security business now threatens to overtake the Chinese army as the largest employer on earth. But what has this army of consultants achieved, apart from spending billions of dollars? Every year the situation gets steadily worse. Jolyon Jenkins investigates whether we have lost the war on cybercrime and looks at a new criminal economy which has grown to feed the demand for our most private details. Jolyon finds that the security details of ordinary members of the public - their bank details, passwords, and secret security questions are being openly traded in cybercrime forums. He finds that we are all vulnerable to criminals who trade on our human weaknesses: our magpie-like obsession with gaudiness and trivia, and our willingness to click the OK button without thinking through the consequences.
