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Wed,Nov 26,2014
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Companies losing out to cybercrime: PwC

(Xinhua)    20:43, November 26, 2014
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BEIJING, Nov. 26 -- Businesses on the Chinese mainland and in Hong Kong are suffering heavier financial losses as a result of information security incidents, according to a survey published Wednesday.

Average losses from detected security incidents in the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong increased by 33 percent to 2.4 million U.S. dollars, according to the latest PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Global State of Information Security Survey.

For the whole world, the average increased 34 percent to 2.7 million U.S. dollars.

The survey was carried out from the end of March to May, based on inquiries to more than 9,700 participants worldwide, including chief executive officers an chief information security officers, more than 400 of whom were from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong.

"While the survey confirms our concerns that the financial impact of detected security incidents is increasing rapidly, many more attacks are either going undetected or unreported," says Samuel Sinn, PwC China risk assurance partner.

"The actual value of stolen intellectual property or trade secrets is therefore likely to be much higher and could range in the tens of billions of US dollars in China and Hong Kong alone," Sinn told a press conference in Beijing.

Estimates based on calculations made by PwC indicate that global financial losses resulting from the theft of trade secrets may range between 749 billion U.S. dollars to 2.2 trillion U.S. dollars.

Losses in this category for companies from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong could range from between 30 billion U.S. dollars to 90 billion U.S. dollars.

"Given this dramatic growth of detected, undetected, and unreported cybercrime, companies should no longer be just asking themselves if they are secure but if they have already been compromised," said Sinn.

Specifically, two out of every five Chinese mainland and Hong Kong respondents point to "disgruntled former employees" familiar with corporate security protocols and systems as one of the major threats to corporate information security.

"Despite the very real and growing danger posed by rogue insiders or attackers exploiting weaknesses in business partner networks, implementation of key insider-threat safeguards appears to be declining," added Sinn.

More positively, 84 percent of Chinese mainland and Hong Kong respondents said that their organizations were increasing information security budgets.

Despite spending more to counter the increasing threat, many organizations still depend too much on law enforcement authorities for tip-offs rather than detecting the incidents themselves, according to the survey.

(Editor:Du Mingming、Bianji)
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