A recent U.S. State of Cybercrime Survey indicates that the 'black hats' are certainly winning the cyber-war against the 'white hats'. The survey shows that criminals are far more technologically advanced at breaking into computer systems than the IT security teams that are in place to stop them.

According to the TechTimes article, the survey shows that three out of every four respondents experienced a breach in security during the past year, with an average number of 135 instances of compromised security per organization. 28 percent of respondents said that the attacks were done from the inside by contractors, service providers, or current and former employees, and 14 percent of respondents said that the monetary losses that they incurred due to cybercrime increased.

The report noted that cybercrime has been ranked by the United States Director of National Intelligence as a top security threat in the country, higher than even terrorism, espionage, and weapons of mass destruction. The top five methods for attacks in cybersecurity are malware, phishing, network interruption, spyware, and denial-of-service attacks.

The report also noted that a current trend in fighting cybercrime is that both public and private organizations are beginning to work together, as countering cybercrime is daunting for any single organization to do on its own.

As cybersecurity incidents multiply in frequency and cost, the cybersecurity programs of US organizations do not rival the persistence and technological prowess of their cyber adversaries.