A Survey of Computer Crime and Security in South Africa

Computer crime has escalated considerably over recent years and has become a very serious problem that costs governments, organisations and general computer user’s significant losses annually. The Internet provides endless connectivity to billions of users around the world which has greatly influenced the flow of information. As revolutionary as this has been, the associated benefits have extended to the criminal world and allowed these miscreants to take advantage of this powerful tool to commit a host of computer crimes (Jones, 2007). Organisations relying on the Internet for daily business processes face significant challenges to ensure that their networks operate safely and that their systems continue to provide critical services even in the face of attack (Householder, Houle & Dougherty, 2002). Moreover, it has become apparent that technology and the law do not seem to go hand in hand, and instead, are grappling to find common ground (Jones, 2007).