Cyber Crime Losses Falling

While the number of cyberattacks in the US may be up, actual losses incurred by businesses and organizations due to e-crime are way down. In fact, according to a June story on the Web site www.searchsecurity.com, 2004 marks the fourth straight year in which losses from cyberattacks have decreased. Bill Brenner is the author of a story about a joint Computer Security Institute (CSI)/FBI study entitled: "Survey: Cybercrime losses down fourth straight year." Brenner points to a heightened awareness within enterprises of IT security as part of the reason for the positive trend.

"The ninth annual Computer Crime and Security Survey showed overall financial losses totaled from 494 respondents were $141.5 million; down significantly from 530 respondents reporting $201.8 million last year," reports Brenner. "Forty-six percent of respondents said security accounted for up to 5 percent of their organizations' total IT budgets and 23 percent said more than 5 percent of their IT spending was for that purpose. Only 16 percent said security received less than 1 percent of the budget."

However, the story reports that CSI and FBI officials caution organizations from dropping their guard too soon.

"A senior analyst... noted that the survey only takes the responses of 494 people into account, not much when you consider how many IT professionals are working for organizations across the United States," writes the author. "It's important to note that reports of hacking to law enforcement also decreased because of companies' concerns over bad publicity."

To read the full version of the story, visit: http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid14_gci970375,00.html.