Fergie's Tech Blog

Web of Crime: Enter the Professionals

[Part One of a Five Part series...]

A PCWorld.com article by Erik Larkin, via Yahoo! News, reports that:

You can't do serious business today without a Web site. And most company owners know that their sites have to be protected from teenage vandals and small-time hackers.

But Internet crime has grown up. Today, if your business comes under attack or your computer gets infected with a virus or worm, the culprit is far more likely to be someone who expects to make money from the assault.

Figures measuring the impact of malware-based crimes are hard to come by because most information in this area is anecdotal. However, a 2004 PriceWaterhouseCoopers survey of more than 1000 businesses in the UK found that, on average, companies spent more than $17,000 on their worst security incidents that year. For large companies, the amount was closer to $210,000, the study found, with most of the cost arising from the disruption to their ability to do business.You can't do serious business today without a Web site. And most company owners know that their sites have to be protected from teenage vandals and small-time hackers. In addition, people who track and/or fight these types of crime say that many companies affected by such attacks do not report the crimes. Instead, they either take care of the problem themselves or go to private security companies for assistance.

"The life that we had with the so-called pranksters instead of the pros is likely to end," says Shane Coursen, senior virus researcher at Kaspersky Lab, maker of security software. "If you exist as a business on the Internet, you should be greatly concerned."

posted by Fergie @ 8/22/2005 03:30:00 PM