THE PRICE OF CYBERCRIME Harry Vincent

THE PRICE OF CYBERCRIME IN AN ECONOMY.

‘Cybercrime To Cost The World $10.5 Trillion Annually By 2025’

Firstly some context; The biggest economy in the world is the US, valued at around 22.68 trillion. The second largest is China at 14.34 trillion and the third largest being Japan at 5.08 trillion. Therefore, if valued in the same terms as a country’s economy - the total cost of cybercrime around the world would be the equivalent to over the value of the third largest economy in the world. With an expectation of global cybercrime costs to grow by a further 15% per year for at least the next 5 years, this is an increasing worry for the economy. This represents the greatest transfer of economic wealth in history.

The fact that a cyberattack could potentially disable the economy of a city, state or the entire country proves the seriousness of it and the impact it can have on the future with cyber becoming a larger and larger part of society. Cybercrime costs include damage and the destruction of data, stolen money, lost productivity, theft of intellectual property, theft of personal and financial data, embezzlement, fraud, post-attack disruption and to the normal course of business, forensic investigation, restoration and deletion of hacked data and systems, and reputational harm- so it will undoubtedly affect anyone and everyone in some way or another.

In April of 2021, Facebook faced mass legal action over a data leak including the passwords, contact information and saved credit details of over 530 million people. In terms of its impact on the economy this had a huge effect on banks and the security of consumers' money and left many consumers with low confidence in case of future attacks. This is worrying for the future with more and more people relying on online banking and cards over the use of cash and will increase to be like this over the years.