Cybercrime costs a cool one trillion dollars worldwide. A new study from McAfee said that data theft and other offenses related to the World Wide Web have debilitated business at that staggering amount. Costs are due to the loss of intellectual property (IP) and expenses for the repair of damage. The study is based on responses to a survey of over 800 business leaders in countries like USA, UK, Germany, Japan, China, India, Brazil and Dubai.

According to the respondents’ reports, each had a loss estimate broken down as follows: IP loss at 4.6 billion dollars average and about 600 million spent to clean up the damage done. The report entitled ‘Unsecured Economies: Protecting Vital Information’ was presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The report further adds that developing countries spend more money for the protection of intellectual property than companies in Western countries do.

Respondents said that the current recession is increasing the security risk for companies. 42 percent of respondents indicate that the greatest danger that poses as threat to sensitive information of the network are the displaced workers. Another interesting finding of the study notes that a quarter of respondents said that they avoid storing data in China and that 47 percent of Chinese respondents said that the greatest threat to the security of their data is the United States.

Since cybercrime spawns widespread paranaoia, shall we say then that it also bears down cost on mental health?

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Via cnet news