Financial losses attributed to malicious hacking, online corporate espionage and other computer crimes probably doubled last year, according to a survey by the Computer Security Institute. The survey covered 643 major corporations and public agencies that estimated their computer crime losses at $266 million in 1999. Based on that number, CSI estimates that total losses attributable to computer crime are around $10 billion annually, mostly from financial fraud and proprietary information theft. However, only one company in four surveyed reported the crimes in 1999, down 32% from 1998. Suspected reasons for the decline are fear of bad publicity and distrust of the FBI. Based on the survey responses, 59% of the companies said the computer attacks initiated from the Internet, while 38% said they initiated from internal company computers. (Los Angeles Times 22 Mar 2000)
http://www.latimes.com/business/20000322/t000027053.html