Global cybercrime costs will exceed $6T annually by 2021
The cost of cybercrime around the globe will exceed $6 trillion annually by 2021 – more than double the annual cybercrime costs of 2015, according to a recent Cybersecurity Ventures report, sponsored by security firm Herjavec Group.
These costs include data damage and destruction, stolen money, loss of productivity, intellectual property theft, personal or financial data theft, fraud, embezzlement, business disruption after the attack, investigation, restoration and deletion of hacked data and systems.
The healthcare industry topped the list of most cyber-attacked industries in 2015, followed by manufacturing, financial services, government and transportation agencies.
Further, cybersecurity defense costs are projected to exceed $1 trillion cumulatively from 2017 to 2021, according the report. And by 2020, more than 25 percent of identified enterprise attacks will involve Internet of Things, as 85 percent of security experts believe half of IoT products are insecure.
[Also: Majority of healthcare leaders elevating cybersecurity as a priority, according to HIMSS]
"Due to the anonymous and impersonal nature of the attack surface, cybercriminals test your assets from outside and in, looking for the most profitable ways to exploit the holes in corporate cyber defenses," Robert Steadman, vice president, Security and Compliance Consulting for Herjavec Group, said in a statement.
"The lack of user awareness when combined with a significant uptick in criminal activity (and improved tactics) has given rise to a number of large scale private and public sector breaches that have resulted in a global epidemic of issues surrounding confidentiality, integrity and availability of data and services," he added.
Ransomware attacks have risen a whopping 300 percent in 2016, the report found. And cybercriminals produced malware at a rate of 230,000 new samples per day in 2015. However, 2016 figures are predicted to be much higher. Even worse, a new zero-day vulnerability was discovered every day in 2015.
90 percent of security incidents stem from exploits against defects in software, according to the report. Furthermore, over 90 percent of corporate executives aren't prepared for a major attack and are unable to read a cybersecurity report.
"There's no effective law enforcement for financial cybercrime today," Herjavec Group Founder, CEO Robert Herjavec said in a statement. "Organizations need to increase their defenses and become more resilient because there is no end state in sight for this growing cybercrime epidemic."
"So long as there is a way for cybercriminals to get paid, with limited risk, attacks will continue," he added. "The challenge remains that large enterprises aren't nearly as agile as their attackers."
Robert Herjavec is slated to speak at 1:15 p.m. on February 23, 2017 with Kevin O’Leary. HIMSS17 runs from Feb. 19-23, 2017 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.
Twitter: @JessieFDavis
Email the writer: jessica.davis@himssmedia.com
