Cybercrime worse than drug trade — US firm

Cybercrime is on the rise, with one million people falling victims each day and costing more than $338 billion in lost time and financial losses, software security firm Symantec said on Thursday.

In its Norton Cybercrime Report 2011, the US-based Symantec said global online criminal activities have cost the world significantly more than the global black market of marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, which has a combined value of $288 billion.

“Cybercrime is much more prevalent than people realize. Over the past 12 months, three times as many adults surveyed have suffered from online crime versus offline crime, yet less than a third of respondents think they are more likely to become a victim of cybercrime than physical world crime in the next year,” Effendy Ibrahim, Symantec’s Director for Consumer Business in Asia said at a press conference in Makati City.

The “cybercrime report” is a survey conducted among 19,636 people in 24 countries from February 6 to March 14, 2011 aimed at determining the scale and cost of online attacks against Internet users in developed countries.

Based on the value victims surveyed placed on time lost due to their cybercrime experiences, an additional US$274 billion was lost. Around 431 million adults have fell victims to such crimes last year, the report stated.

Of the 12,704 adults surveyed, 69 percent have been a victim of cybercrime. Ten percent of adults online have experienced cybercrime on their mobile phone. –Ferdie Fabella, Manila Standard Today