A government report has suggested Cyber crime costs the UK economy £27bn a year.

The costs include £21bn to businesses, £3.1bn to citizens and £2.2bn to government.

These figures that have been published for the first time are only a mid-range estimate, and that the real cost could be even greater.

Of the £21bn costs to businesses, nearly half is made up of intellectual property theft, such as theft of designs.  Illegal file sharing is not included in the figure.

Intellectual property theft costs £9.2bn, industrial espionage £7.6bn, extortion £2.2bn, direct online theft £1.3bn and theft of customer data £1bn.

The sectors most-effected were pharmaceuticals, biotech, electronics, IT and chemicals.