NCJ Number
167546
Journal
Security Journal Volume: 7 Issue: 2 Dated: (July 1996) Pages: 101-108
Date Published
1996
Length
8 pages
Annotation
A national study of corporate security directors was conducted to examine their experiences with computer crime.
Abstract
Using established survey research methods, the authors examined the extent of victimization, the characteristics of computer crimes, perpetrator characteristics, and the types of security countermeasures used. The results show that 98.5 percent of the reporting businesses had been victimized by computer crime. The most common target was theft of intellectual property, such as new product information, product plans, pricing information, and customer prospects. Full-time employees committed the most crimes, although a substantial number of incursions by hackers were reported. Moreover, the threat by hackers is apparently increasing disproportionately fast, given the growth of networking and related factors. There were statistically significant relationships for the use of data encryption, operations security, and surveillance of employees when tested against the various security countermeasures. Use of authentication software and firewalls did not show significant relationships as security countermeasures, most likely because of extraneous variables. 3 tables and 18 references