According to new report on cyber security, computer users are likely to spend 1.5 billion hours and $22 billion on dealing with malware programme that are spread across the world by cybercriminals.

A new report titled, 'The Dangerous World of Counterfeit and Pirated Software' showed that the malware is likely to have a significant impact on the time and money of consumers, enterprises and the governments around the world. The study on the impact of cybercrimes on the time and money was jointly conducted by Microsoft and IDC.

The report estimated that the consumers are likely to waste 1.5 billion hours of their time and $22 billion on determining, repairing and recovering from the malware activities on their systems. It also said that enterprises around the world are also likely to face the impact of malware in a significant way as they are likely to spend $114 billion on the security measures to deal with the issue and secure their systems and information.

The study involved information from a 10-country survey of 1,104 consumer respondents, 973 business user respondents, and 268 CIO/IT manager respondents. It analysed malicious code and malware like viruses, Trojan horses, keystroke-capturing software, authentication backdoors, and spyware present on pirated software, web sites, and peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.

"The cybercrime reality is that counterfeiters are tampering with the software code and lacing it with malware. Some of this malware records a person's every keystroke -- allowing cybercriminals to steal a victim's personal and financial information -- or remotely switches on an infected computer's microphone and video camera, giving cybercriminals eyes and ears in boardrooms and living rooms," says David Finn, who is the associate general counsel in the Microsoft Cybercrime Center.