Businesses must carry out thorough risk assessments with board-level support
if they are to combat cybercrime.
The Cybercrime Survey 2001, released last week, shows that nearly two-thirds
of firms have experienced a serious e-business crime in the past year. More
than half also expect cybercrime to rise over the next three years.
Employers need to keep up to date with e-business threats as well as raise
user awareness about security, explained Andrew Beard, a director in IT
security practice at Pricewaterhouse Coopers and co-author of the report.
He said, "My advice is that as you become increasingly involved in e-business
a thorough assessment of risks is undertaken with board-level support."
The report shows that nearly 40 per cent of the 148 companies surveyed do
not have a board director responsible for cybercrime risk management and have
not performed a board-level risk assessment of their e-business.
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Rogue members of staff continue to be a threat to e-business, with 13 per
cent of incidents carried out by former employees and 11 per cent by current
staff. Hackers and computer viruses are the greatest threat, claims the joint
research by the CBI, PwC, Fraud Advisory Panel, Armor Group and the
International Fraud Prevention Research Centre.
