Information Age staff

Malware, adware, viruses and spam continue to assail users everywhere as the Internet continues to be a dangerous place - and it's getting worse. While security vendors struggle even to stay in touch with an accelerating tide of threats, professional criminals are gainfully exploiting millions of computers, governments and businesses are recruiting specialised hackers to wrest away others' secrets and malware writers are winning their war. The extent of Australian computer crime is hard to gauge as there's no requirement for it to be reported. However, the fact that more than a billion dollars was spent on trying to find and seal holes in the security fences here and in NZ shows that the problem has got industry attention. In this survey our writers here and overseas look at the panoply of dangers out there, what is being done to create a bulwark against them - and where the battles have simply been lost. There's little to cheer looking down the security road for the next year; elsewhere in this issue, Neil McAllister looks at the top 25 technoflops of all time. Security came out at the top of his list.
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Information Age staff

Malware, adware, viruses and spam continue to assail users everywhere as the Internet continues to be a dangerous place - and it's getting worse. While security vendors struggle even to stay in touch with an accelerating tide of threats, professional criminals are gainfully exploiting millions of computers, governments and businesses are recruiting specialised hackers to wrest away others' secrets and malware writers are winning their war. The extent of Australian computer crime is hard to gauge as there's no requirement for it to be reported. However, the fact that more than a billion dollars was spent on trying to find and seal holes in the security fences here and in NZ shows that the problem has got industry attention. In this survey our writers here and overseas look at the panoply of dangers out there, what is being done to create a bulwark against them - and where the battles have simply been lost. There's little to cheer looking down the security road for the next year; elsewhere in this issue, Neil McAllister looks at the top 25 technoflops of all time. Security came out at the top of his list.