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McAfee CEO David DeWalt says cyber-crime has become a US$105 billion business that now surpasses the value of the illegal drug trade worldwide.

Despite the increase in government compliance requirements and the proliferation of security tools, companies continue to underestimate the threat from phishing, data loss, and other cyber vulnerabilities, new McAfee CEO David DeWalt said Tuesday.

In a keynote address at the InformationWeek 500 conference in Tucson, DeWalt said “it’s amazing how low the awareness is of cyber-security threats” among both government officials and corporate executives. “As the world has flattened, we’ve seen a significant amount of emerging threats from increasingly sophisticated groups attacking organizations around the world.

“Citing recent highly publicized corporate data breaches that have beset major companies like Ameritrade, Citigroup, and Bank of America, DeWalt said that cyber-crime has become a US$105 billion business that now surpasses the value of the illegal drug trade worldwide.

Last week Internet stock trading company TD Ameritrade Holding said that one of its databases had been hacked by a thief who obtained personal information on some of its customers. Yesterday, an attorney launching a class-action lawsuit against Ameritrade claimed the online brokerage knew that someone had compromised its database as early as one year ago. An Ameritrade spokeswoman said that all of the company’s 6.3 million accounts opened before July 18 of this year were exposed.

‘Worldwide data losses now represent US$40 billion in losses to affected companies and individuals each year, DeWalt says. But law enforcement’s ability to find, prosecute, and punish criminals in cyberspace has not kept up: “If you rob a 7-11 you’ll get a much harsher punishment than if you stole millions online,” DeWal remarked. “The cross-border sophistication in tracking and arresting cyber-criminals is just not there.”

Source: itnews