End of Software, The: Finding Security, Flexibility, and Profit in the On Demand Future

Chapter 6. Batten Down the Hatches

Quantifying the cost of security breaches is difficult because most companies do not report attacks. However, the annual Computer Security Institute and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation computer crime and security survey tallied more than $201 million in quantified financial losses in 2003. Among respondents, the most frequently cited forms of attack were viruses (82%) and insider abuse of network access (80%). Theft of proprietary information was the greatest source of financial loss. Total losses amounted to $70 million with an average reported loss of $2.7 million. In a shift from previous years, the second most expensive computer crime among survey respondents was denial of service, with a cost ...