Cybercrimes Cost Global Economy $445 Billion A Year: Report
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Cybercriminals – i.e. hackers, industrial or corporate spies etc. etc. – are causing nearly $445 billion in economic damage every year, according to a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), with the damage for businesses nearly double that for individuals.
“Cybercrime remains a growth industry,” said the Washington-based think-think. “The returns are great, and the risks are low.”
Cybercriminals – i.e. hackers, industrial or corporate spies etc. etc. – are causing nearly $445 billion in economic damage every year, according to a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), with the damage for businesses nearly double that for individuals.
“Cybercrime remains a growth industry,” said the Washington-based think-think. “The returns are great, and the risks are low.”
“This is a global problem and we aren’t doing enough to manage risk,” added James A. Lewis, CSIS senior fellow and co-author of the report.
At $445 billion, the damages amount to nearly one percent of global income. According to the CSIS, the true damage could be as high as $575 billion.
“Putting a number on the cost of cybercrime and cyberespionage is the headline, but the dollar figure begs important questions about the damage to the victims from the cumulative effect of losses in cyberspace,” they wrote.
“The cost of cybercrime includes the effect of hundreds of millions of people having their personal information stolen—incidents in the last year include more than 40 million people in the US, 54 million in Turkey, 20 million in Korea, 16 million in Germany, and more than 20 million in China.
“Criminals still have difficulty turning stolen data into financial gain, but the constant stream of news contributes to a growing sense that cybercrime is out of control.”
Related: Will The Next Economic Disaster Be A Cyber Crisis?: Kenneth Rogoff
Related: Russia Hacked Hundreds Of Companies Worldwide For Economic Gain, Claims Report
Related: US Indicts Five Chinese Military Officials For Cyberspying
So far, the world’s biggest economies have bore the brunt of the losses, with the losses in the United States, China, Japan and Germany reaching $200 billion a year in total.
The countries with the highest levels of cybercrime, relative to gross domestic product are the Netherlands and Germany, at 1.5 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively. For the U.S., it’s 0.64 percent, and for China it’s 0.63 percent.
