Group Says Computer Crime Getting Worse

Computer crime is booming and few people are doing enough to protect themselves against assaults ranging from stolen laptops to high-tech Internet heists worth millions, a San Francisco-based watchdog group said. In its third-annual survey, the Computer Security Institute said 520 specialists polled at U.S. corporations, government agencies, financial institutions and universities reported that the wired world was becoming increasingly dangerous. The survey found that 64% of respondents reported security breaches within the last year, which was a 16% increase over the 1997 survey results. Most of the computer crime victims could not estimate how much money they had lost to the cyberthieves. But 241 organizations did tally it up, leading to a total of $136 million--up 36% over 1997. The breaches ranged from computer viruses and laptop theft to financial fraud, theft of proprietary information and sabotage.