Cybercrime Outranks Other Crimes on Europeans' Worry ListCybercrime Outranks Other Crimes on Europeans' Worry List

Cybercrime is the new "big worry" in Europe.

The European Network Information Security Agency (ENISA) last week warned that increasing cybercriminal activity threatens the economic interests of the European Union, according to a report.

The agency estimates that as many as six million computers in the European Union are infected by, and connected to, botnets, and that spam is costing businesses 65 billion Euros.

Antivirus vendor AVG Technologies supported ENISA's findings with the results of a newly published study that took a look at attitudes toward cybercrime in seven different countries. A total of 7,000 PC users were polled.

Twenty-two percent of the respondents to the AVG survey said they had experienced some form of cybercrime. Italians fared worst -- 32 percent of users said they have been affected. U.K. users were close behind, with 31 percent affected.

More Europeans believe they are more likely to experience cybercrime (34 percent) than burglary (22 percent), assault (19 percent) or robbery (25 percent). Almost half of all Germans believe they are likely to be a victim of cybercrime (47 percent); no other crime accounted for more than 20 percent.

— Tim Wilson, Site Editor, Dark Reading