Employees cash in their PCs' chips

Pilfering employees have emerged as the most active thieves of memory chips, a survey reveals.

The collapse in memory chip prices has led to a slump in black market thieving, because professional criminals now find the risks outweigh the rewards, according to a report prepared by the exhibition organiser Infosecurity.

Mike Heylin of Circle Security, a manufacturer of computer security products, claimed staff were lured into temptation ? not to make money illegally ? but to upgrade their home PCs over the weekend so they can surf the Net and play games.

He said: ?Employers have detected memory chips disappearing from work. Theft is being discovered when the computers, which were running at proper speed on Friday afternoons are found on Monday morning to be loaded only with sufficient memory for them to boot up but not able to load full operating systems or integrated software packages.?

In 1995, criminals targeted the memory market because it was worth money on the black market. But last year the price crashed. According to Infosecurity the price of 4Mb of memory fell from #160 to #24.

Infosecurity: 01203 426416