Cybercrime costs UK economy $43.5 billion yearly

Cybercrime costs the British economy £27 billion ($43.5 billion) each year according to a new stats reported by the government.

The Office of Cyber Security & Information Assurance and consultancy Detica reported that the amount 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.

Further, costs implicated on UK companies make up 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.