The year rang in with the threat of a computer meltdown — the Y2K bug — but it proved to be more hype than horror. Yet having weathered that digital storm, the world has faced a succession of bugs and viruses that have done real damage to both computer systems and confidence in the network economy. These problems are not going to go away. They are an intrinsic part of the digital economy. But the casual approach to security that most computer users have must change.

Last year, it was Melissa. Last week, it was the Love Bug. Both viruses were designed by young computer hackers who had no idea of the havoc they were unleashing — the Love Bug was responsible for billions of dollars in lost productivity. Between those two incidents, unknown hackers unleashed denial-of-service attacks on some of the Internet's most prominent businesses. The attacks — in which computers were flooded with as many as 1 million bits of information per second — temporarily disabled some of the biggest and most popular Web sites on the Internet. Their vulnerability is troubling. If they can be overwhelmed, then no one is immune.

Creating a framework to deal with these problems is critical. It is estimated that more than 500 million people worldwide will be online by 2003. As that number rises, digital technologies will work their way deeper into everyday life. The total value of e-commerce, both retail and business-to-business, is expected to rise from $120 billion this year to $2.8 trillion within four years. Security and reliability are essential.