Cyber crime cost $625m in past year

Cyber crime cost New Zealanders a total of $625.5 million in the past year, according to the lastest CyberCrime report

Norton’s CyberCrime 2011 report was released today, detailing the costs and extent of cyber crime in New Zealand and the rest of the world.

International research company StrategyOne conducted online surveys from February to March of this year, interviewing a total of 19,636 people in 24 countries.  The report made extrapolations to find the total net cost to countries.

For New Zealand, the direct cash cost of cyber crime, involving money stolen or the cost of dealing with the crime, was $288.2 million ($US213.2 million), the report said.

Globally, the figure was $US114 billion, calculated by working out the number of victims over the past year (per country) times the average financial cost of cyber crime (per country).

These average financial costs were calculated based on respondents’ answers to the questions “What financial value would you place on the time you have lost due to all your experiences of cybercrime over the past 12 months? How much have you lost financially over the past 12 months due to cybercrime?”

The cost for Australia was $AUD1.8 billion ($US1.8 billion), for the United Kingdom it was £474.2 million ($US761.9 million) and for the United States it was estimated at $US32 billion.

The victims’ value of time lost to cyber crime was $337.3 million ($US249.8 million) in New Zealand, compared with $US274 billion total for the 24 countries surveyed.

The cost for Australian was estimated at $AUD2.8 billion ($US2.9 billion), for the United Kingdom it was £618.9 million ($US1 billion) and for the United States it was $US107.6 billion.

The total net cost of cyber crime was calculated by adding the direct cash cost to the victims' calue of time lost, which globally was extrapolated to $US388 billion, for the United States $US139.6 billion, for Australia $AUD4.6 billion ($US4.7 billion) and for the UK £1.1 billion ($US1.8 billion).

72% of online New Zealand and Australian adults said they had experienced cyber crime in their lifetime, compared with a global 69%, 73% of US adults and only 51% in the United Kingdom.

 57% of online New Zealanders had been victims of cyber crime in the past 12 months, compared with 65% globally, 62% of Australians, 66% of US adults and 61% of adults in the United Kingdom.

New Zealand, Australian, American adults who experienced mobile related crime stood at 8% compared with 10% globally and only 3% in the United Kingdom.

New Zealand and the United Kingdom had a faster resolution time for cyber crime, at four days compared with 10 days globally and for the US. 

Australia was billed at 11 days to resolve cyber crime.

Globally the most common type of cyber crime was computer viruses and malware, which made up 54% of cyber crime reported by respondents overall followed by online scams at 11% overall, and then phishing at 10% overall.

The percentage of adults in New Zealand who did not have up-to-date security software at 23% was just over half that of the global average at 41%, and was lower than the US at 34%, the UK at 28% and Australia at 25%.

41% of online New Zealand adults had been a victim of online crime in the past 12 months, the report said, compared with a global 44%, 45% of Australian adults, 31% of UK adults and 48% of US adults.

20% of New Zealanders had been a victim of physical world crime in the past 12 months, compared with a global 15%, 15% of Australians, 10% of UK adults and 14% of US adults.

New Zealanders spent an average of 20 hours online per week, with 29% of mobile or cell phone users accessing the internet on their device.

There was a global average of 24 hours per week and 44% accessing the internet through their mobile device, with Australians clocking up 23 hours per week, with 37% of mobile users accessing the internet on their device.

UK adults clocked up 20 hours per week and 48% of mobile users accessing the internet through their mobile device.

US adults spent an average of 24 hours per week online, with 46% of mobile users accessing the internet via their device.

35% of online New Zealand adults said they would lose contact with friends without their social networks, compared with a global average of 32%, 33% of Australians, 29% of UK adults and 40% of US adults.

Norton internet safety advocate Marian Merritt said the Cybercrime report was more for consumers than the industry-oriented Internet Security Threat Report.  She said the report was structured to represent a cross section of the countries' population across such groups as gender, socio-economic status and more.

She said it was the fourth annual report but that trends were difficult to pick as new countries had been added since the last report.  She said in the emerging markets, crime numbers had risen, particularly over mobile devices.

She said the scale of cyber crime, which calculated one million victims a day affected by cyber crime, was the most noticeable aspect of the report.

Ms Merritt said cyber crime was something people did not tend to talk about, so it passed under the radar."

The amount of victimization and the dollars lost to it is bigger than, according to our agency's estimation, is bigger than drug crime."

RAW DATA:

1) 868,206 victims in New Zealand over past 12 months:

·          New Zealander online population from CIA factbook (2,115,512 ), latest research from NCR shows 72% of adults in New Zealand have been a victim of cybercrime ever and of these 57% have been a victim in the past 12 months

–      2,115,512 x 72%  x 57%  = 868,206


2) 0.03 cybercrime victims every second / 1.65 cybercrime victims every  minute/ 99 per hour / 2,379 per day impacting 868,206 adults in the past year in New Zealand

–      PER DAY: 868,206 / 365 = 2,379

–      PER HOUR: 2,379 / 24 =99

–      PER MINUTE: 99 /60 =1.65

–      PER SECOND: 1.65 /60  =0.03


3) Cybercrime is big business costing US $ 213.2 million in  the last year in New Zealand (NZD 288.2 million)

–      868,206 x  $245.62  (US currency)


3a) The extrapolated value of lost time over the past 12 months is US  $ 249.8 million in New Zealand (NZD 337.3 million)

–      868,206 x $287.71 (US currency)


4) The total number of cybercrime victims ever:  1.5 million

–       2,115,512 x 72%


5) Total cost of cybercrime: $463 million

–      $213.2 million+ $249.8 billion = $ 463 million


For the purposes of the study, cybercrime is identified as computer viruses/malware, online credit card fraud, online hacking, online harassment, online identity theft, online scams (i.e., fraudulent lotteries/employment opportunities), online sexual predation, online phishing, smishing.

Over the past year in 24 countries 431 million adults experience cybercrime, more than a million became victims every day, Back14 adults suffered from cybercrime every day.

For more see Norton's Cybercrime Report 2011.