Organized groups of hackers are targeting your business, combining high-tech crime with old-fashioned threats. Chills ran down my spine as I read the first in a series of articles about hacking and organized crime in Russia in the May 18 edition of The Washington Post. In this three-day series, the Post described in detail how groups of Russian hackers broke into business networks in the U.S., harvested useful information ranging from credit card information to e-mail files, and then extorted money from the victim companies. The targets covered a range of medium sized businesses, from financial institutions to e-commerce merchants to law firms. The approach was always the same. Once the hackers had found the information they needed, they would usually leave a small file announcing their visit and leave. A few days later, they’d contact someone at the company and offer to fix the problem and provide continuing protection against hackers. In other words, it was a classic protection scheme, modified for the digital age. The tab for such protection? Sometimes as much as a half-million dollars. Full Story