No anti-virus software?

AUSTRALIANS would be forced to install anti-virus and firewall software on their computers before being allowed to connect to the internet under a new plan to fight cyber crime.

And if their computer did get infected, internet service providers like Telstra and Optus could cut off their connection until the problem was resolved.

Those are two of the recommendations to come from a year-long inquiry into cyber crime by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications.

Results of the inquiry, titled Hackers, Fraudsters and Botnets: Tackling the Problem of Cyber Crime, were released last night in a 260-page report.

In her foreword, committee chair Belinda Neal said cyber crime had turned into a "sophisticated underground economy".

"In the past decade, cyber crime has grown from the nuisance of the cyber smart hacker into an organised transnational crime committed for vast profit and often with devastating consequences for its victims," Ms Neal said.