If figures must be believed, the virtual world is not exactly a
safe venue for business or private affairs. In its sixth annual Computer
Crime and Security Survey in 2001, the Computer Security Institute of San
Francisco reported on mounting financial losses to computer crimes and
other information security breaches, 85% of which were incurred primarily
by respondent large corporations and government agencies (Business Journal
2001). A third of these respondents said that they lost almost $400 million
to cyber criminals in 2001 alone, an increase from a yearly average of $120
million in the three years before 2000 and $265 in 2000, according to the
The most common forms of losses have been theft of proprietary
information at an aggregate of $151 million and financial fraud at $93
million. Almost all of these occurred through their internet connection in
combination with their internal systems as points of attack (Business
Journal). Despite the rise of the said crimes, only one of three reported
The US Department of Justice released a list of prosecuted crimes
committed through the internet from 1998 to the present (2004). These
crimes include the disabling of the control tower of a government facility,
hacking, banditry or web banditry, theft of proprietary company information
by an employee or outsider, computer sabotage, embezzlement by un-
authorized sales of items or services, un-authorized access into credit
card accounts, creation of destructive viruses or worms.
The National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996
amended the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, codified as 18 USC 1030, the law
against fraud and related activities in connection with computers
(Department of Justice). It punishes anyone who knowingly accesses a
computer internet connection without authorization or in excess of
authorized access and acquires information prot...