Cybercrime Losses Decline for Third Consecutive Year

Date: March 31, 2008
Source: Health-care-it.advanceweb.com


The Computer Security Institute (CSI) showed results of its ninth annual Computer Crime and Security Survey recently. The Computer Crime and Security Survey is conducted by CSI with the participation of the San Francisco branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s Computer Intrusion Squad.

The survey aims to raise the level of security awareness and help determine the scope of computer crime in the United States. The survey is available at the Institute's Web site, www.gocsi.com.

Highlights of the 2004 Computer Crime and Security Survey include the following points:

· Overall financial losses totaled from 494 survey respondents were $141,496,560. This is down from 530 respondents reporting $201,797,340 last year.

· In a shift from previous years, the most expensive computer crime was denial-of-service attacks. Theft of intellectual property, the prior leading category, was the second most expensive last year.

· Organizations are using metrics from economics to evaluate their security decisions. Fifty-five percent use return on investment, 28 percent use internal rate of return and 25 percent use net present value.

· The majority of organizations in the survey do not outsource computer security activities. Among those organizations that outsource some computer security activities, the percentage of security activities outsourced is quite low.

Chris Keating, CSI's director, believes the survey, now in its ninth year, suggests that organizations that raise their level of security awareness have reason to hope for measurable returns on their investments.

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