IT leaders want tougher e-crime penalties

According to research from blue-chip user group The Corporate IT Forum, electronic crime is still not being taken seriously enough by the government, and stricter penalties should be enacted for those convicted, says Computing.co.uk.

The organisation's survey suggests 69% of members had experienced an increase in intentional e-crime, and 68% of companies now spend up to 40% of their security budgets protecting against cyber-crime.

The survey also highlighted growing scepticism of the government's response to this increase in e-crime.

Video game publishing giant Electronic Arts (EA) is to shed more than 500 jobs, after the firm announced lower than expected profit for the year, reports The BBC.

Nearly 20% of its share value was wiped out after the profit warning.

EA said that higher development and marketing costs, as well as delays to the latest Harry Potter video game, were to blame for the reduced profit.

The details of about 500 000 online bank accounts and credit and debit cards have been stolen by a virus described as "one of the most advanced pieces of crimeware ever created", says The BBC.

The Sinowal Trojan has been tracked by RSA, which helps to secure networks in Fortune 500 companies. RSA said the virus has infected computers all over the planet.

"The effect has been really global, with over 2 000 domains compromised," says Sean Brady of RSA's security division.

China gets more browser-based exploits than any other country, according to the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report for the first half of 2008, reports CNet.

This is one of the findings in the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report, due to be released on Monday. Covering the first half of this year, the report provides statistics compiled from Microsoft's Malware Protection Centre that reveal trends about threats, breaches and infection rates.

"Industry-wide, we've seen a decrease in the last 12 months in vulnerabilities across products," down nearly 20% from the year-ago period, George Stathakopoulos, GM of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group, said in an interview.