Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Hard Drive Destroyer (photo: Security Engineered Machinery)
Hacking and other forms of electronic data theft are now a bigger problem for companies worldwide than old fashioned stealing of physical property.
The risk consulting company Kroll found in its latest annual survey that 27.3% of businesses reported theft of information or data assets over the past 12 months, up from 18% in 2009. Comparatively, incidences of physical assets or stock being stolen registered at 27.2% in 2010.
Nearly 90% of companies reported suffering at least one type of fraud during the past year. In some countries, the rate of fraud nearly reached 100%, such as in China (98%). Colombia ranked second (94%), followed by Brazil (90%).
Financial services companies were most vulnerable to information and data theft, with 42% of companies in the industry reporting a loss, as compared to 24% a year ago.
The most common perpetrators were junior employees and senior management. The only region that was an exception was Latin America, where the guilty parties were most likely to be customers.
-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky
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