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Consumer Reports came out with a report on the State of the Net that determined consumers lost 7 billion dollars to viruses, phishing, and spyware in the last two years. The study also put the medium cost of $200 dollars per phishing mishap. Also, according to the report, consumers currently stand a 1 in 4 chance of falling victim to cybercrime, a number that has actually decreased since last year. The survey was done by Consumer Reports National Research Center using a sample of more than 2,000 households with Internet access.

The report also concluded that virus infections remained steady compared to last year, which Consumer Reports called progress, considering the escalation of attack vectors and the growing threat of Web 2.0. According to the survey, 38 percent a virus infection in the last two years, and 17 percent had no antivirus protection on their machines.

Most experts were not surprised by the findings. In a quote taken from EWeek, "Recent statistics indicate that one in every 10 Web sites is infected with malware," said Forrester Research analyst Chenxi Wang. "Therefore it is highly likely that an unsuspecting Web consumer—one that does not have adequate protection in place—would encounter a malware hosting Web site browsing the Internet."

And because of the growing threats from Web 2.0, with sites like MySpace and FaceBook, children were the most likely victims (and the least to be measured by this survey).

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