Study: Many UK businesses prey to cybercrime

Cybercrime is on the rise in the UK and for the first time, those businesses that are hit by hacks are more likely to be attacked by hackers from outside of the company instead of inside, according to a study published Wednesday by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).

Of the 148 companies surveyed for the study "Cybercrime Survey 2001," two thirds have been the victim of a "serious" cybercrime in the past year, said CBI spokesman Roger Davidson. The CBI defined a serious cybercrime as a case of hacking of a company's computer system, a virus attack or credit card fraud.

"The study was carried out over the past two or three months and looked at cybercrime in the UK, specifically over the past year," Davidson said.

Of the cybercrimes that occurred in the past year, 45 percent were committed by hackers, 13 percent by former employees, another 13 percent by organized crime. Only 11 percent of the cybercrimes committed were carried out by a company's current employees, the study said.

The UK study found that UK businesses perceived business-to-business (B-to-B) transactions to be more secure than business-to-consumer (B-to-C) online transactions. Specifically, 53 percent said they considered the Internet to be a safe place for B-to-B transactions, while only 32 percent felt the same way about B-to-C transactions, the CBI said.

The CBI called on the UK government to be more proactive in combating cybercrime. The CBI also urged the UK government to establish a UK Center for Cybercrime Complaints, which would be similar to the Internet Fraud Complaint Center -- a partnership between the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) launched in the U.S. in May 2000.

The CBI study was conducted in partnership with the UK Fraud Advisory Panel, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, ArmorGroup Inc. and the Nottingham Trent University International Fraud Prevention Research Centre, CBI said.