$300 million in 1999,
$10 billion in 2000 and already $1.2 billion for what
has happened in 2001. Hurricanes? Wild fires? Natural
disasters? No. It's the damage that's been done by the
Melissa virus, the Love Bug virus, and the recent Code
Red worm to computer systems and networks; and it's
got insurance agencies, large and small, reassessing
their need for security.
The latest Computer Security Institute/FBI crime and
security survey reported that 85 percent of respondents
(538 computer security practitioners in U.S. corporations,
government agencies, financial institutions, medical
institutions and universities) detected computer breaches
in the last 12 months. Thirty-five percent of respondents
quantified their losses for an aggregate total of $375
million. Businesses in the U.S. are at risk of losing
billions of dollars due to e-business attacks and accidents,
according to research by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
In October 2000, hackers were able to penetrate Microsoft's
internal networks in an act of "industrial espionage,"
or "netspionage," and stole priceless digital
blueprints for future products. If it could happen to
Microsoft, it could happen to most companies. Intellectual
property assets account for 80 cents of every dollar
of stock market value of S&P 500 companies, according
to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Network Security Insurance
is required to cover the potential losses by electronic
theft or sabotage.
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