Imagine waking up one morning to discover all your personal information has been stolen. Your bank account has been cleaned out. The project you have been working on for the past six months has vanished. Your e-mails have been infected . . .
Imagine waking up one morning to discover all your personal information has been stolen. Your bank account has been cleaned out. The project you have been working on for the past six months has vanished. Your e-mails have been infected with a virus that has copied itself to all the people you have ever exchanged e-mails with. You try to make a call but your mobile phone's address book has been deleted remotely.

Then things start to get really bad.

The computer system protecting your house no longer recognises you because the data containing your retina scan has been stolen. Now you are barred from your home, so you alert the police, but they are very keen to talk to you about your recent credit card purchase in Panama.

It sounds like technophobe's worst nightmare, but it could be reality.