Cyber crime is costing the United Kingdom more than £27  billion a year ($43.5 million), according to a recent study published by Britain’s Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance.  The report, entitled “The Cost of Cyber Crime,” concluded that digital crime was a widespread, pervasive threat to U.K. businesses.

Theft of intellectual property, such as designs, formulas and other company secrets from businesses costs £9.2 billion, with firms specializing in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, electronics, IT and chemicals being hit hardest.  The pharmaceutical industry loses about £1.8 billion a year in IP theft, followed by electronics and electrical equipment makers and the software sector.  In terms of non-IP industrial espionage, financial services are the biggest loser, with yearly losses of more than 2 billion, followed by mining and aerospace. 

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Fifty years ago, a superhero leaped tall buildings in a single bound and used x-ray vision to catch evil criminals.   Today, some of the world’s most threatening criminals are computer hackers.  Superman may not be able to save us from cataclysmic cyber attacks, but we can rest a little easier knowing seven cyber guardians are holding keys to one of society’s most valuable commodities—the internet.  

ICAAN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has provided “keys” to the internet to seven members of the global community. As discussed in prior posts, ICAAN is a non-profit watchdog group that helped establish Domain Name System Security Extensions,  or DNSSEC.   The DNSSEC—which just became enabled this year— is a critical security technology that lies at the core of the internet’s global addressing system.  It protects the very heart of the internet by ensuring that users reach the intended web address.

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