Cyber attacks, losses on rise worldwide

Intrusions into computer systems and resulting financial losses are both on the rise, according to a survey released Tuesday.

CIO Magazine and PricewaterhouseCoopers polled 8,200 IT security executives around the world and determined that security-related events and events that resulted in financial losses were both up around 22 percent in the past year.

Hackers were responsible for the majority of cyber intrusions, followed by disgruntled current and former employees.

The response has been an overall hike in corporate security spending from 11 percent of company revenue to 13 percent last year.

A number of companies, however, remain relatively unprotected, with only 37 percent having a formal IT security plan in place.

Copyright 2005 by United Press International