As if CSOs don't have enough on their plates, they now need to beat back made men, capos and the other elements of the Mafia. Yes, the Mafia is formally involved in cybercrime, or so alleges the U.S. attorney for Florida, who filed charges against associates of the Bonanno crime family that included pilfering data from Lexis-Nexis.

The Mafia engaging in cybercrime might sound like your grandmother joining Facebook. In fact, "the majority of data breaches are the result of organized crime," says Nick Holland, an analyst at Aite Group in Boston. That doesn't mean it's the conventional Mafia pulling the strings--though it can be. In fact, it's hard to tell just who is in control sometimes. For the most part, cybergroups that become notorious, like the Rockfish or the old Russian Business Network, do so because very few cybercrime groups publicize themselves, says Steve Santorelli of Team Cymru. (Cymru, pronounced cumri, is the Welsh word for Wales.)
In fact, observers sometimes disagree on just who's behind a crime. Take last year's RBS Worldpay scam, which saw hackers not only make off with 1.5 million records from the electronic payments processor, but make fake ATM cards used to withdraw more than $9 million in 49 cities around the world in a one-hour period. Frank Heidt, CEO of Leviathan Security in Seattle, thinks this was a case of an extremely well-organized group with roots in Russian organized crime. Peter Cassidy, director of research at Triarche Consulting Group in Cambridge, Mass., says it looks like a franchise-style operation in which the data and details on how and when to use it was sold to groups operating in different regions.

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