Australia's computer emergency response team, AusCert, reported that only 35 per cent of respondents to a new survey fell victim to a harmful electronic attack in the 12 months to February, compared to 49 per cent the previous year.

Now that's something we could all celebrate, were it not for the fact that the survey doesn't include incidents associated with online identity theft, which in the 12 months to April 2005 increased by a mere 1200 per cent.

Umm, doesn't that suggest that the entire survey is utterly without meaning, and that the war is not going at all well?

Here's another ludicrous statistic: AusCert would have us believe that "total annual losses reported from electronic crime were only marginally higher at $16.9 million, compared with $15.9 million or a 34.9 per cent rise the previous year". The figures look even better, according to the Fin, when you consider the fact that they were skewed by a single denial-of-service attack on one company, which accounted for $8 million. In other words, the value of online fraud would have been less than half that of the previous year.

As we learned last year, Australian banks are reporting only a tiny percentage of online fraud cases - less than 5 per cent - and these figures, in the best traditions of military non-intelligence, serve only to keep the public deluded.

The figures don't tally with reports from other countries, where instances of phishing and pharming and social engineering, together with common or garden fraud transacted online have been spiralling. Or maybe banks and financial insitutions aren't regarded as corporations.