The Growing Cost Of Cyber Crime

No industry is untouched by the growing cost of cybercrime and organisations have seen security breaches grow by 67% in the past five years alone. Cybercrime is increasing, takes more time to resolve, and is more expensive for organisations to deal with .

Banking is one of the most affected areas, with annual costs crossing $18 million in 2018. This probably not surprising as financial motives are a major incentive for hackers as historically criminals have often tried to steal from banks in the past. However, cybercrime is now costing all types of business around the world enormous amounts of money.

Current estimates suggest that cybercrime has a projected global value $5.2 trillion for criminals over the next 5 years.

Experts Categorise Cyber Crime into 4 Groups: 

• Malware,
• Wweb-based attacks,
• DDoS (denial of service) 
• Malicious insiders.

While the first two are distressing, as huge information loss takes place, the third one additionally, disrupts the business. However, the insider led crime is the most vicious, as it grinds everything to a halt. Undoubtedly, the USA tops the list with known costs of $27.4 million, followed by Japan of $13.6 million, Germany $13.1million, UK 11.5 million, France $9.7 million, according to the Raconteur website. Other big nations reeling under the ill effects of such crime are Singapore, Canada, Spain, Italy, Brazil and Australia. Unfortunately, many countries do not have reliable data.

Evidently, the Banking industry is most prone to such ingress in their IT systems and data shows losses in 2018, totalling $18.4 million. Utility and software are also big losers in the same range. The auto industry has shown a 50 per cent increase in cyberattack hits last year, while travel and life sciences have faced 100 per cent more virulence in cybercrime losses. Even the media industry suffered a reported $9.2 million worth of fraud effects. 

Information theft is the most expensive and fastest rising consequence of cybercrime. However, data is not the only target. Core systems such as industrial controls are being hacked in a dangerous trend to disrupt and destroy, the report said.

While data remains a key target, theft is not always the outcome of an attack. A new wave of cyberattacks sees data no longer just being copied but being destroyed or changed, in attempts to breed distrust.

The steps that can be taken to mitigate the consequences of this new crime is to use more frequent and up-to-date employee training and cyber audits should be included in an organisation’s company strategy and tactics.
 
Cyber Security Intelligence  can connect you with experts who can complete a Cyber Audit and advise on the best course of action to vastly improve your cyber resilience, securing your data and protect your business from cyber-attacks with a plan for the Future.

CSI can also suggest and recommend the best Cyber Security Training Programmes that will work best for your Organisation and Employees.

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Business World:          Visual Capitalist:           ZDNet: 

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