E-crime Costs Firms €250m ($298.8m) a Year, Survey Reveals

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A major survey undertaken by the Irish Small & Medium Enterprises Association, (ISME) has confirmed that computer related e-crime is costing firms €250 million annually.

Spam email, virus infection, phishing and credit card fraud are the major contributors to the huge annual loss.

The survey results of more than 600 companies show the problem is on the rise and needs immediate intervention to prevent the issue getting out of hand, ISME said. Two thirds of companies (65%) reported being a victim of e-crime in the last twelve months with 95% hit by spam e-mail, 54% by phishing, 51% from virus infection and 13% credit card fraud.

Anti-virus software is the preferred protection for 88% of companies, with 74% using spam filtering software and 71% installing hardware firewalls.

One in 10 has employed an IT manager to look after their security, with a further 17% using an IT supplier responsible for security. The results show Cyber crime is increasing dramatically as SME businesses throughout the country are continuously under attack, said Mark Fielding, head of ISME.

Because of the growing threat companies are being forced to spend thousands of euro counteracting these activities by purchasing hardware and software and hiring consultants to rectify problems and protect business, he said. "In some cases companies are unaware of these activities and are extremely exposed to an external attack on the company," he said. The internet remains a huge and mainly unregulated area and SMEs need to have confidence that there are some structures in place to support them and procedures must be put in place to allow businesses report e-crime while it is crucial more prosecutions are taken, he said.

The introduction of an effective system "to monitor, measure and manage Cyber crime and gather intelligence to investigate and prosecute when appropriate" is vital to the solution of this problem, he said. Many businesses are very exposed and fearful of the potential impact of e-crime. The more fearful they are the less likely they will participate in e-commerce and use technology as part of their daily business routines, such as e-banking, he said.

Also if companies see that nothing is being done to address the issue they are less likely to report incidents. "Criminals are becoming more sophisticated and the problem will increase, unless appropriate measures are introduced," he warned.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, June 07, 2010

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