Financial espionage is growing because of e-commerce.

According to Pilot Network Services, an Internet service provider that specializes in securing corporate clients against hacker attacks , there has been a steady rise of questionable activity since 1995, when the company was formed. Last year, Pilot denied about 30 million packets per month from hackers attempting to enter its customers_ systems. That number will increase over the next few years as more companies move toward e-commerce sites that open the door to outsiders. What could a hacker possibly want from your company? Well, according to Marketta Silvera, president and CEO of Pilot, they will go after a financial database, pricing strategies or a list of customer contacts. "Financial espionage is growing because of e-commerce," Silvera said. And the hackers are getting more sophisticated. That is where Pilot comes in, with a defensive network infrastructure based on its own security utility. It isolates all traffic before it reaches the client network, then separates the packets for filtering and analysis. If it finds an anomaly, entry into the network is denied. But Pilot offers more than just a tool. This is a service, and probably one of the best value-added ISP services. Pilot_s technology is sophisticated enough to pinpoint where the attack originated. Silvera calls her company the "CIA of online services," and she told how members of the Pilot team were able to call a hacker on the phone while he was attempting to break into a Pilot customer site.