Leader: Too many still fear the net

Government research released today revealed a startling fact: consumers are more worried about falling victim to cyber crime than mugging, car theft or burglary.

The news made headlines for obvious reasons - those real-world crimes are pretty unpleasant to experience. Do we value our PCs and data so highly we would feel that kind of pain if they were attacked? Or is this just the result of media hype?

Obviously the message is getting across about needing to be careful on this 'new-fangled interweb thing' but it appears to be laced with too much fear and not enough fact.

Those of us who use the net know the chances of being targeted by hackers are not that great - especially once rudimentary defences such as a firewall and antivirus software are in place - and rarely do such attacks cause irreparable harm.

So great is consumers' fear of the net, however, that significant portions refuse to use it - especially for tasks such as banking or shopping, according to the research.

This is bad news indeed for both the purveyors of those services and for e-government initiatives which aim to provide public services online.

The answer clearly is better education - an aim of Get Safe Online, the government-sponsored body behind the research.

But the headlines also serve as yet another reminder of how far we have to go before we can become a truly digital society - especially when 40 per cent of consumers say they are unsure even where to get advice about how to secure themselves online.