E-crime threats grow in bad economy

The economic downturn is putting pressure on employers from many angles. One concern is that their own employees may be more willing to steal data or sell insider knowledge, according to two recent surveys. KPMG's 2009 E-crime Survey found that 66 percent of respondents feel that out-of-work IT workers would be tempted to join a criminal underground as a result of the economic meltdown and use their knowledge against the company they know.

A companion study released by security vendor Symantec, and reported in InfoWorld, also showed another threat lurking for the enterprise: More than 2.4 million strains of malware exist, said Malcolm Marshall, a KPMG partner in IT governance. The security community could soon "face a potential meltdown in the way we do e-business," Marshall told InfoWorld. The threat is driven by IT professionals who may be refining their skills to steal data and a lack of security knowledge on the part of the consumers, he said.

For more on e-crime:
- check out this InfoWorld.com article

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