Average UK businesses losing £10,000 a year thanks to cybercrime and online fraud

The UK economy is losing £27bn a year to cyber espionage, extortion and online fraud, and British businesses account for £21bn of this loss.

Estimated losses for IP theft (theft of trade secrets from UK firms) come to £9.2bn, and a further £7.6bn due to industrial espionage (non IP related data) and a further £2.2bn is paid to criminal gangs by UK firms as a result of extortion - although evidence for extortion cases is sketchy since most such crimes go unreported.

£1bn is lost to loss or theft of customer data and £1.3bn is direct online theft.

The Office of Cyber Security, who compiled this report, recommends the creation of a website to publicise the issue and to act as a central, anonymous hub for UK businesses to report fraud.

The OCS estimate the UK government loses £2.2bn to cyber crime.

From The Register, read the full article here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/17/cyber_crime_total/