Current cybersecurity situation

Current cybersecurity situation

A high degree of cyber-resilience is a basic prerequisite for the effective functioning of highly digitised processes, networkable products and services. This is because the damage caused by cyber security incidents is tremendous, both in the private sector and in industry. Current estimates suggest that in 2021, the annual global costs emanating from cyber-crime and state-motivated cyber-attacks will amount to six trillion US dollars. This would be a doubling of the damage estimated for 2015. 1 These figures show that there is a close correlation between the increasing degree of connectivity and the expected level of damage caused by cyber security incidents.

For German companies alone, the damage caused by cyber-attacks has been immense. In the past two years, sabotage, data theft and espionage have caused 205.7 billion euros of damage to German industry. 2 Over the same period of time, three quarters of all German companies have been confronted with digital or analogue types of data theft, industrial espionage or sabotage. Successful cyber-attacks –often entailing phishing or DDoS attacks or infection with various types of malware –have caused a damage to seven out of ten companies over the past years.

The damage to private households is much more difficult to quantify, as cybercrime is often unreported and the damage cannot always be directly linked to an incident. The reasons for successful cyber-attacks are also extremely diverse and are by no means solely due to characteristics inherent to products (hardware and software): Rather, a careless handling of data, a lack of knowledge about potential attack vectors, as well as a lack of willingness to install updates, all significantly contribute to the success of the attacks.

The potential threat of cyber-attacks is unlikely to diminish. Rather, as our daily lives are becoming smarter, i.e. more digital and thus more networked, the potential target for cyber-criminals is growing immensely. According to current estimates, the number of networked objects worldwide is expected to rise to 125 billion by 2030. This compares to 27 billion networked objects in 2017. 3 By 2022, every German will have around 9.7

1 Cybersecurityventures. 2018. Cybercrime Damages $6 Trillion By 2021. URL: https://cybersecurityventures.com/cybercrime-damages-6-trillion-by-2021/ (Accessed: 3. Juli 2019) 2 Bitkom. 2019. Wirtschaftsschutz in der digitalen Welt. URL: https://www.bitkom.org/sites/default/files/2019-11/bitkom_wirtschaftsschutz_2019_0.pdf 3 IHS Markit. 2017. The Internet of Things: A movement not a market. URL: https://cdn.ihs.com/www/pdf/IoT_ebook.pdf