- Aug 6, 2015
- 306
Global annual cybercrime costs will grow from $3 trillion in 2015 to $6 trillion annually by 2021, according to fresh forecasting.
Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that in the next five years, costs from damage and destruction of data, stolen money, lost productivity, theft of intellectual property, theft of personal and financial data, embezzlement, fraud, post-attack disruption to the normal course of business, forensic investigation, restoration and deletion of hacked data and systems, and reputational harm will double as the attack surface grows a full order of magnitude larger than what it is today.
“We are at a critical point in cyber warfare,” said Tyler Cohen-Wood, a cyber-specialist at security awareness training company Inspired eLearning, in the Cybersecurity Ventures report. “In the past two years, we have seen a massive upswing in hackers breaking into some of the most highly secure corporations and stealing financial data, intellectual property, and very sensitive personal information—and it seems to be growing exponentially.”
Cybersecurity Ventures’ estimate is based on historical cybercrime figures including recent year-over-year growth, a dramatic increase in hostile nation state sponsored and organized crime gang hacking activities, changes in the threat landscape and the cyber-defenses that are expected to be pitted against hackers and cybercriminals over that time.
Perhaps most impacting: The firm estimates that by 2020, the world will need to cyber-defend 50 times more data than it does today.
“Microsoft frames digital growth with its estimate that by 2020 four billion people will be online—twice the number that are online now,” the report noted. “They predict 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020, and data volumes online will be 50 times greater than today.
The report also cites FCC numbers that today count 7 billion people, about 850 million web servers online, and about 4 billion zetabytes of digital content worldwide. By 2022, the commission predicts there will be 8 billion people, 75-300 billion networked devices globally and 96 zetabytes of digital content.
Read more: Annual Cybercrime Costs to Double to $6 Trillion by 2021
Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that in the next five years, costs from damage and destruction of data, stolen money, lost productivity, theft of intellectual property, theft of personal and financial data, embezzlement, fraud, post-attack disruption to the normal course of business, forensic investigation, restoration and deletion of hacked data and systems, and reputational harm will double as the attack surface grows a full order of magnitude larger than what it is today.
“We are at a critical point in cyber warfare,” said Tyler Cohen-Wood, a cyber-specialist at security awareness training company Inspired eLearning, in the Cybersecurity Ventures report. “In the past two years, we have seen a massive upswing in hackers breaking into some of the most highly secure corporations and stealing financial data, intellectual property, and very sensitive personal information—and it seems to be growing exponentially.”
Cybersecurity Ventures’ estimate is based on historical cybercrime figures including recent year-over-year growth, a dramatic increase in hostile nation state sponsored and organized crime gang hacking activities, changes in the threat landscape and the cyber-defenses that are expected to be pitted against hackers and cybercriminals over that time.
Perhaps most impacting: The firm estimates that by 2020, the world will need to cyber-defend 50 times more data than it does today.
“Microsoft frames digital growth with its estimate that by 2020 four billion people will be online—twice the number that are online now,” the report noted. “They predict 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020, and data volumes online will be 50 times greater than today.
The report also cites FCC numbers that today count 7 billion people, about 850 million web servers online, and about 4 billion zetabytes of digital content worldwide. By 2022, the commission predicts there will be 8 billion people, 75-300 billion networked devices globally and 96 zetabytes of digital content.
Read more: Annual Cybercrime Costs to Double to $6 Trillion by 2021
