By some accounts, it has been a bad year for Internet security so far: The number of incidents reported in the first half of 2003 climbed to 76,404 - just a little shy of the 82,094 reported for the entire year of 2002, according to the CERT Coordination Center of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. On top of those bleak statistics, Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Initiative is coming off like a joke. And hackers are making mincemeat out of all types of software and hardware.

Despite all the publicity surrounding alerts and product defects, the Internet seems as vulnerable as ever. Why does it continue to be plagued by security threats and breaches? And what can be done to keep its integrity intact? Security experts chalk up the Internet's weaknesses to several factors, but they all agree that private industry will have to be the prime mover behind any changes.

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