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Hackers Stole $172 Billion From People Last Year (symantec.com)
Yearly report published by security firm Norton estimates that as many as 978 million people in 20 countries lost money to cybercrime last year. On an average, the firm says, victims lost an average of $142 and spent nearly 24 hours dealing with the fallout of their attack.
Very detailed article. I'm impressed.
Although I do wonder, how much did they get away with and keep as opposed to get caught and got to jail?
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
172 billion? That's all??
Interesting data, interesting read. I do tend to read reports about security from companies trying to sell me security products with a bit of doubt though. Is it really good for business if Symantec puts out a report that shows anything but increasing security issues and data to help sell their products? One data point that's interesting is - "Having a device infected by a virus or other security threat (53%)". That number to me just shows how some people only believe they have a security issue when they see something actually happening to their devices. Judging from the amount of Apple, Microsoft and Google updates for security I would think that almost 100% of people had a device that would fall into the "other security threat" category.
Sent from my TARDIS
Nearly one in four believe stealing information online is not as bad as stealing property in ‘real life’
That depends entirely on what you mean by "information".
Believing that Disney et al 's hijacking of copyright to totally pervert the system from what the founders intended is a travesty that deserves civil disobedience is not a "contradictory belief" to also believing you shouldn't steal your neighbor's stuff.
You can go to prison for copying Steamboat Willie 90 years after it was published.
I'll play - so let's say a corporation losses $1M, so they write it off - let's say it was a very successful company, so if they had not lost that $1M in profits they would have paid an estimated $350K in federal income taxes on it (under previous tax code in US), denying the federal government several hundred thousand dollars in tax revenue. But wait, there are also state and local taxes that will not be collected on that $1M, denying those governments tens of thousands in tax revenue, not to mention the remaining $500K plus that was not distributed to shareholders to spend or invest in America (assuming the thieves were foreign).
That doesn't sound "victimless" to me
Ken
It's a really confusing article, where the numbers are handpicked to make it look like a serious problem. It's not at all clear what the losses were for (considering that the most prevalent 'crime' was virus infection, I imagine that most of the money went to PC/phone repair people), it's not at all clear how individuals in each country were affected (except for the time spent dealing with the aftermath), and the graph '53% of consumers experienced cybercrime...' is deliberately misleading by doubling each row by sticking the sum to the right of the first two bars.
In short, complete and utter FUD.