An Information Technology (IT) expert warned on Monday that West Africa was fast becoming the haven for external hackers and viruses.

Such actions cause irreparable loss of valuable corporate information, Mr Tim Gros, General Manager of the African IT Exhibitions and Conferences (AITEC), said at a press conference in Accra to open the first national computer and information security event.

He said an annual computer crime survey by the Computer Security Institute and Federal Bureau of Investigations of United States had revealed that 64 per cent of 520 respondents in that country experienced computer security breaches within the last 12 months.

This indicated 16 per cent increase from the previous year of the survey, which had IT security practitioners in corporations, government agencies, financial institutions and universities as the target audience.

Mr Gross said the scenario in West Africa was no better, saying, AITEC, therefore, organised the event to offer participants the opportunity to check the growing phenomenon and save companies from huge material and financial losses.

According to the US survey, statistics available to AITEC, 72 per cent of respondents admitted that they suffered financial losses from security breaches, 44 per cent reported unauthorised access by employees while 24 per cent reported system penetration from outside their companies.

About 15 per cent of respondents reported incidents of financial fraud with 14 per cent experiencing sabotage of data or networks.