The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a report titled Malicious Software (malware): a Security Threat to the Internet Economy last week on the international state of Internet security.
The report doesn't say anything particularly new from my quick read, but it does nicely pull together a lot of published information around the world that many people may not be familiar with into a single easy to read package.
For instance, a couple of items in the report:
In 2005, "only one in seven computers in Australia use a firewall and about one in three use up-to-date virus protection software."
"One association of banks in the United Kingdom estimated the direct losses caused by malware to its member organisations at GBP 12.2 M in 2004, GBP 23.2 M in 2005, and GBP 33.5 M in 2006, an increase of 90% from 2004 and 44% from 2005."
In 2006, it was "estimated that 59 million users in the US have spyware or other types of malware on their computers."
In 2007, it placed the estimated "annual loss [from malware] to United States businesses at USD 67.2 billion."
If you are looking for a compendium of the international impacts of Internet security problems, this a report that you should have as a reference.
