You can rob a bank without leaving your house these days. Who needs stocking (1)______, guns and getaway cars? If you’re a computer whiz-kid, you could grab your first million (2)_______ with nothing more dangerous than a personal computer, a telephone and a modern to (3)_______them.
All you have to do is to dial into the networks which like the computers in large organizations together, type in a couple of passwords and you can rummage (4)_______in the information that’s stored there (5)_______your heart’s content. Fortunately it isn’t always quite as easy as it appears. But, as more and more information is (6)_______and stored on computer, whether it is details of your bank account or the number of tins of baked beans in the stockroom at the supermarket, a computer crime seems set to grow.
A couple of months ago a newspaper reported that five British banks were being (7)_______to ransom by a gang of hackers who had managed to (8)_______their computer. The hackers were demanding money (9) _____revealing exactly how they did it. In case like this, banks may consider paying just so that they can protect themselves better in the future.
As with (10)________else, hackers start young in the States.