Cybersecurity: Fighting a Threat That Causes $450B of Damage Each Year

Cybersecurity: Fighting a Threat That Causes $450B of Damage Each Year

With recent high profile hacks of companies such as Uber, Equifax, and HBO, it’s safe to say that cybersecurity is already top of mind for many of the world’s biggest companies.

However, as billions of more devices get connected to the internet every year – including many that are not properly secured – this cybercrime threat is evolving quickly, and the stakes are rising as well. Experts estimate that cybercrime caused $450 billion of damage to the economy in 2016, and that number is expected to increase to $6 trillion by 2021.

Today’s infographic, which comes to us from Evolve ETFs, covers the growing threat of cybercrime along with the associated boom in global cybersecurity spending.

Situation: Code Red

The potential impact of a large-scale cyber attack is bigger than ever, and today cybersecurity is a number one concern for businesses, governments, and individuals.

Since 2013, over nine billion records have been lost or stolen globally, and nearly two billion of those were breached in the first half of 2017 alone.

With 80% of the value of Fortune 500 firms stemming from intellectual property (IP) and other intangibles, this means that the digitization of assets comes with massive risks. According to a joint report by Lloyd’s and Cyence, a single large-scale attack could cause up to $53 billion in damages, which is comparable to the size of a natural disaster.

The potential firepower behind today’s cyber threats are enough even to catch the attention of top defense officials. In a survey of 352 national security leaders, the greatest threat facing the United States is not terrorism (26.3%) – it’s actually cyberwarfare (45.1%).

Fighting Cybercrime

Businesses are more focused than ever on protecting themselves and their data from increasingly advanced and complex threats.

In a recent survey by Marsh LLC and Microsoft, of the many global companies that are subject to new privacy rules in Europe, 78% of senior executives are planning to increase spending on cyber risk management in the next 12 months.

Reducing the cost of security breaches by only 10% can save global enterprises $17 billion annually.

– Morgan Stanley

As a result, the cybersecurity sector continues to be one that is on the rise. Spending is increasing particularly in four key areas: security analytics (SIEM), threat intelligence, mobile security, and cloud security – and global cybersecurity spending is expected to grow at a 9.5% CAGR to hit $182 billion in 2021.