CybersecurityU.K. rethinking cyber security

A government report estimates that U.K. cyber crime could cost more than £27 billlion a year.

Estimates of £21 billion to businesses, £2.2 billion to government, and £3.1 billion to citizens may be an under-estimation due to a possible lack of reporting for fear of “reputational damage.”

Security minister Baroness Neville-Jones said the government was determined to work with industry to tackle cyber crime.

At the moment, cyber criminals are “fearless because they do not think they will be caught”, she said in a briefing in central London.

Baroness Neville-Jones said that the government had committed £650 million over the next four years to tackle the problem by focusing its efforts on defending itself, rather than working out the origin of attacks.

A joint working group consisting of Baroness Neville-Jones, Prime Minister David Cameron, and Foreign Secretary William Hague met the bosses of some of Britain’s biggest businesses, including Barclays, HSBC, Tesco and BA, on Monday to urge them to take the problem more seriously.

Martin Sutherland, chief executive of Detica, the consultancy which compiled the report with the Cabinet Office, said that “By understanding that business bears the burden of over three quarters of the £27bn cost of cyber crime we are better placed to defend and protect assets crucial to every business sector in today’s interconnected market place.”

Of the £21 billion cost to business, intellectual property theft cost £9.2 billion, industrial espionage £7.6 billion, extortion cost £2.2 billion, direct online theft cost £1.3 billion, and theft of customer data cost some £1 billion.

The hardest-hit sectors being pharmaceuticals, biotech, electronics, IT, and chemicals.