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Wednesday, August 16, 2006
US consumers losing billions in cyber attacks
A report out in the US has put a figure on losses suffered by Americans due to computer malware and cybercrime, and this figure is staggering. According to Consumer Reports’ State of the Internet survey, last year Americans lost $7.9 billion because of computer viruses, spyware and online scams.
Overall, a quarter of those surveyed suffered from a computer virus infection last year, with incidents being very costly for users, who had to spend an average of $109 remedying problems.
Spyware, which is also a type of malware, also represented a major problem for American computer users, who had to shell out $2.6 billion to cover the costs of infecting their machines with it.
Although total losses standing at $630 million were considerably lower than from malware, phishing has become a major problem for online users.