The criminal Hackers building their bot and zombie armies have nearly an open and undefended playing field; many are using it every day to steal money and identities.
Just as a small subset of criminal hackers can taint the reputation of an entire community, a few good guys willing to be accountable for their internal processes and technology can preserve a company's reputation.
Determined criminal hackers are underestimated and will launch attacks, while the effectiveness of security technologies and protocols are typically overestimated.
Many websites, high street banks and even telephone companies are launching online systems that require you to enter your credit card details only once and then use passwords - useless to criminal hackers - to send secure payments by email to online shops or even friends.
Or even more worrying, has a criminal hacker managed to access your private exchange remotely so that all the calls he makes while your firm is shut end up on your account?
