Business Day reports that a study by cybersecurity firm Wolfpack Information Risk indicates that the three sectors hardest hit by cybercrime in SA were government, banking and telecommunications which were conservatively estimated to have lost R2.6bn between January 2011 and August last year. David Szady, vice-president of the US security conglomerate Guardsmark, was quoted in SA safety and security magazine Servamus last year as saying thousands of intrusions into corporate networks, government systems and personal computers are occurring every day; though the real threat is in the 'continuous transfer of wealth from national economies'. Verine Etsebeth, a lecturer in information security and data protection at the University of the Witwatersrand, says cybercrime is bigger than the global black market in marijuana, cocaine and heroin combined In its April 2013 Crime Overview, the SA Banking and Risk Information Centre said the banking industry had experienced an average 25% drop in violent crime and a 20% average decrease in most categories of commercial crime. But electronic 'phishing' incidents rose by 61% and the centre has graded cybercrime as a priority threat. Full Business Day report