CYBERTHREATS TOOK A NEW TURN

The 12th annual survey of cybercrime trends found that online attackers determined to break into computers, steal information and interfere with business are more technologically advanced than those trying to stop them.

The survey was cosponsored by business consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the U.S. Secret Service, the CERT Division of Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute and CSO security news magazine.

Three out of four respondents said they had detected a security breach in the last year, and the average number of security intrusions was 135 per organization, the survey found.

"Despite substantial investments in cybersecurity technologies, cybercriminals continue to find ways to circumvent these technologies in order to obtain sensitive information that they can monetize," Ed Lowery, who heads the U.S. Secret Service's criminal investigative division, said in a written statement.

Lowery said companies and the government need to take "a radically different approach to cybersecurity," which goes beyond antivirus software, training employees, working closely with contractors and setting up tighter processes.

The top five cyberattack methods reported in the survey were malware, phishing, network interruption, spyware and denial-of-service attacks. And 28 percent of respondents said the attackers were insiders, either contractors or current and former employees or service providers, according to the survey.

Former CIA director Leon Panetta, now with the Panetta Institute for Public Policy, is weighing in."We're living at a time when I've always believed that the battlefield of the future is going to be in cyberspace," Panetta said. "This is an area that I think represents one of the key threats in the 21st century that we're going to have to pay attention to."

Cybercrime is increasing daily and the ability to get ahead of it is not easy, Panetta said.

PANETTA HAS SOME SOLUTIONS.

"We've got to invest in technology, we've got to invest in experts, we've got to develop investments in people that develop the capabilities that we need in order to stay ahead of this," he said. "We've got to stay on the cutting edge of this technology and if we don't we'll be in trouble."

The recent survey shows businesses surveyed were hacked an average of 135 times last year. Many times, the attackers were insiders or contractors.

The toll on businesses and consumers each year is in the billions. Panetta said laws regarding cybercrimes need to be toughened. Cyberattack, she said, should be considered an act of war.

"In my book, if you paralyze this country by taking down our electric grid or taking down transportation system, chemical systems, our water, financial systems, as far as I'm concerned, that's every bit an attack on this country as Pearl Harbor," he said.