$7.8 Billion Economic Impact Due to Viruses and Spyware Threats

"It's hard to tell who's losing the money -- the insurance company, the credit card company or the consumer -- but it's coming out of someone's pockets," said Dan Hubbard, vice president of security and research for Websense Inc. Consumers paid as much $7.8 billion over two years to repair or replace computers that got infected with viruses and spyware, a Consumer Reports survey found.

That figure was down from a similar survey a year ago. Still, it suggests that people are paying large sums to cope with the flood of malicious viruses and other programs that can slow computers or render them inoperable. "There is a very high national cost to this," said Jeff Fox, technology editor of the consumer magazine. "People think they're invincible, even when this kind of money is involved."