Case Studies of Cybercrime and Their Impact on Marketing Activity and Shareholder Value‪.‬

INTRODUCTION E-commerce is a fundamental part of marketing activity. Most e-commerce takes place on the websites of publicly traded companies. The term 'cyberspace' refers to the electronic medium of computer networks, principally the Web, in which online communication takes place. A challenge facing e-business or cyber-business is that it is vulnerable to e-crime, also called cybercrime. Cybercrime can totally disrupt a company's marketing activities. Cybercrime costs publicly traded companies billions of dollars annually in stolen assets, lost business, and damaged reputations. Cybercrime costs the US economy over $100 billion per year (Kratchman et al. 2008, Mello 2007). Cash can be stolen, literally with the push of a button. If a company website goes down, customers will take their business elsewhere.