pcworld.comCybercrime is leeching the U.K. economy of a terrifying £27 billion ($43.5 billion) every year according to a new estimate published by the government.
The headline number put out by the Office of Cyber Security & Information Assurance and consultancy Detica includes a £21 billion cost to business, of which £9.2 billion results from theft of intellectual property (IP) and £7.6 billion from industrial espionage.
Extortion against U.K. companies accounts for another £2.2 billion, the loss of customer data £1 billion, with £2.2 billion racked up in 'fiscal' fraud against the government itself.
Conventional cyberfraud against ordinary citizens is reckoned to be £3.1 billion in total, comprising £1.7 billion from identity theft and another £1.4 billion from online scams. Fake anti-virus scams alone accounts for £30 million of useless software sold to citizens.
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