Hacking is on the rise, just as governments and businesses are becoming more dependent on the World Wide Web for essential services such as power grids, communications lines and air traffic systems.
Every site is vulnerable.
Mr. Murphy agreed that the likelihood for wide-scale damage is very real. I think over time we're bound to have something like that take place, where something large-scale gets hit. Mr. Murphy and other experts say the hacking of the Times site in mid-September proves that nothing on the Internet is impervious to security breaches. The hit could not have been timed better. Although the paper will not release figures on how much was lost, it was a significant amount, said Bernard Gwertzman, editor of The New York Times Online.