Cybercrime costs $388 billion to world economy: Study
08 Sep 2011
Cybercrime now extracts greater costs on the world economy than trafficking in marijuana, heroin and cocaine, which is estimated at $388 billion, according to a new study.
The Norton Cybercrime Report estimates the straight-up financial costs of cyberattacks globally at $114 billion, with time lost dealing with the crime adding another $274 billion, as against the costs of the global black market in the three drugs estimated at $288 billion.
For the first time, the Norton Cybercrime Report reveals that 10 per cent of adults online had experienced cybercrime on their mobile phone. In fact, the Symantec Internet Security Threat Report, Volume 16 reported there were 42 per cent more mobile vulnerabilities in 2010 compared to 2009 - a sign that cybercriminals were starting to focus their efforts on the mobile space.
The number of reported new mobile operating system vulnerabilities increased, from 115 in 2009 to 163 in 2010. In addition to threats on mobile devices, increased social networking and a lack of protection are likely to be some of the main culprits behind the growing number of cybercrime victims.
Around 14 adults fall victim to one or the other kind of cybercaper amounting to over a million victims on a daily basis, according to the report from Norton-maker Symantec, with young people accessing the web on their mobiles the most likely victims.
However, despite the huge numbers, people are not doing much to avert attacks with 74 per cent of people saying though they were aware of cybercrime, 41 per cent of them not having up-to-date security software and 61 per cent not using complex, regularly-changing passwords.
