Cybercrime costs to top $1tr this year: researchers

WASHINGTON: Cyber­crime is expected to cost the global economy more than $1 trillion this year, up more than 50 percent since 2018, a research report said on Monday.

The report by McAfee Corp, in cooperation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), concluded that the cost of online criminal activity was more than one percent of global economic output, and also had significant non-monetary impacts.

The researchers noted a surge in a range of attacks including ransomware, phishing, business email takeovers, spyware and crytpocurrency theft.

Some of the increase can be attributed to weaker security with more people working remotely outside their workplace.

“The severity and frequency of cyber attacks on businesses continues to rise as techniques evolve, new technologies broaden the threat surface, and the nature of work expands into home and remote environments,” said Steve Grobman, chief technical officer at McAfee.

“While industry and government are aware of the financial and national security implications of cyber attacks, unplanned downtime, the cost of investigating breaches and disruption to productivity represent less appreciated high impact costs.”

The report was based on a survey of 1,500 technology professionals in government and business in the US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and Australia.

The impact of cybercrime included the loss of intellectual property and monetary assets, but also system downtime and damage to an organization’s reputation, according to the report.

“It is no secret that cybercrime can harm public safety, undermine national security, and damage economies,” the researchers wrote.