Each year, the UK must bear the loss to 27 billion pounds due to crime in cyberspace, or cyber crime.
Some internet crime, among others, attacks on computer systems, industrial espionage and theft of company secrets. As a result of this action alone, the British government had to swallow losses at least 21 billion pounds.
Defence Minister Pauline Neville-Jones’ claim, the best way to overcome this problem is to establish strong cooperation between the private sector and government to disrupt criminal networks, not just rely on the legal action.
“I do not believe, the best way to fight crime is simply relying on punishment. I think, would be better if we provide better defense as well as disrupt their networks,” said Neville-Jones told the Telegraph, Friday (02/18/2011).
“Related to terrorism, if only rely on punishment, we will experience many incidents to date. We also have to ‘bother’ their activities,” he continued.
Based on the consultant’s report Detica, cyber crime in the UK caused the damages up to 1,000 pounds per second.
Theft of intellectual property such as designs, formulas and other secrets of the company causing losses up to 9.2 billion pounds, in which the company engaged in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, electronics, IT and chemical suffered the biggest losses. Meanwhile, industrial espionage causes loss of 7.6 billion pounds.
Not only governments, cyber crime also hurting residents up to 3.1 billion pounds per year.