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back to article UK biz bled dry by cybercrime

The average UK business is losing £10,000 a year thanks to cyber espionage, extortion and other forms of online fraud. In total the UK economy is losing £27bn a year and British businesses soak up £21bn of this loss. Given there are 2.1 million UK firms registered for VAT this gives a loss per firm of £10,000. The numbers, …

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  1. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse
    Stop

    Made up numbers.

    So, if ...

    "A further £7.6bn is lost due to industrial espionage - defined as the theft of non-IP related data and £2.2bn is handed to criminal gangs by UK firms as the result of extortion.

    But that...

    "The OCS admits it has no evidence for such extortion, because it believes this crime is mostly not reported."

    Then the only conclusion one can draw is that this whole report is suspect, and irrelevant. They may as well have added that a further £10bn is stolen by yellow aliens from Mars holding up corner shops with ray-guns.

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  2. Tony S
    Big Brother

    Call me Mr Cynical

    The OCS warned: "Our assessments are, necessarily, based on assumptions and informed judgements rather than specific examples of cyber crime, or from data of a classified or commercially-sensitive origin."

    Translation = we made the number up, based on what my friend Sandy heard from a man down the pub.

    I do accept that this is an area where it is difficult to be accurate. However, if they want to use these figures to formulate policy, they do need to try to provide at least some justification for the numbers.

    Just think, it could actually be worse - generally, they underestimate most things. And I'm sure that my generalisation is at least as accurate as theirs.

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  3. Jon Smit
    Joke

    £27bn

    Isn't that exactly the same amount of profit the banks made last year?

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  4. Chrissy
    WTF?

    Policymaking......

    using a dartboard.

    Are they recruiting? I too can wet my finger, stick it in the breeze and make up numbers of the top of my head.

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  6. mhoulden
    Unhappy

    So....

    Numbers based on assumptions and counting things that aren't actually "cybercrimes", whatever those are. Looks like not everything changes when a new party gets into power.

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  7. dephormation.org.uk
    WTF?

    Would that be the same OCS...

    that is located in the Cabinet Office?

    The same Cabinet Office Civil Servants that allowed Russian spyware crooks to monitor the UK telecommunications network, steal intellectual property, and gather commercial intelligence. Not once, not twice, but at least three times... without a whisper?

    The same Cabinet Office that refuse to discuss industrial espionage, intellectual property theft, and commercial copyright infringement by BT/Phorm?

    By an amazing co-indicence of initials, OCS is the name of the computer hackers in Moscow that Phorm are using to develop their rootkits and surveillance technology. (They wrote and distributed the malicious Apropos root kit for Kent Ertugrul).

    How ironic then, that HMG would choose those same initials to label the Office of Cyber Security.

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    1. Uk_Gadget
      Reply Icon

      Nowt

      Thought it strange that Office Cleaning Services were releasing this kind of material..

      1 0
  8. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    WTF?

    "Our assessments are, necessarily, based on assumptions and informed judgements rather than specific examples of cyber crime, or from data of a classified or commercially-sensitive origin." - But it will scare people enough to front up some budget.

    This averages out to nearly £500 per person in the UK; it doesn't really sound very credible. The UK engineering sector has an annual turnover of about £100 billion, so IP theft and industrial espionage are worth 15%? It just sounds like made-up statistics applied to large(ish) numbers - what we call "bollocks".

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does this include...

    ...the undoubtedly enormous invoice they submitted for writing this crap?

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Average of £10,000 per business

    Blarney!

    0 0
  11. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Detica

    Interesting that the company helping the OCS provide these made-up numbers, Detica, is a computer and information security consultancy.

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  12. Tron Silver badge

    Bullshit paid for out of public money.

    So come on, how much public money was handed to Detica in a brown envelope to come up with this rubbish?

    Detica. Owned by BAE Systems. Who have lost money through the Govt. defence contract cuts, but can make it up writing fiction like this, which their chums in Govt. pay for with public money, and then use to justify more draconian legislation.

    3 1
  13. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Flame

    But Detica have a *cunning* plan

    A few (modestly priced) boxes at all ISP;s will allow *complete* monitoring of these fellows.

    And everyone else.

    Vested interest? Nous.

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  14. bugalugs
    Boffin

    @Tron

    " So come on, how much public money was handed to Detica in a brown envelope to come up with this rubbish? "

    Consider the possibility that the brown envelope went the other way. To buy this rubbish. With public money. Paid to Detica.

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  15. JaitcH
    FAIL

    "Cabinet Office said it was impossible to say how much ..." More numerical flatulence

    The only identifiable provable cost was that incurred by Office of Cyber Security (pdf) and Detica.

    Another BSE mathematical exercise that proves nothing.

    And Cameron is 'cutting waste"? I have an additional item to put on his list.

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