Recent studies and surveys have identified that financially motivated technology enabled crime cases are of considerable concern to business and industry. A survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers (2006) on behalf of the UK Department of Trade and Industry reported that information security breaches cost UK companies across several industry sectors 10 billion per annum. The independent 2006 AusCERT (2006) survey also raises similar concerns. Based on a relatively small number of public and private organisations in Australia, survey results over the four years indicated that computer facilitated financial fraud, laptop theft, and infections from viruses and worms are seen as the major sources of financial losses. In the 2006 survey, although infections from viruses and worms were the most common form of electronic attack reported, the financial loss attributed to laptop theft was higher than that attributed to infections from viruses and worms. The chart below shows the costs attributed to these three types of offences over the four years.
Financial losses from high tech crime, 2003–2006 [see attached PDF for graph]
References
- AusCERT 2006. Australian computer crime and security survey. 22 May.
- PricewaterhouseCoopers 2006. DTI information security breaches survey 2006. 25 April.