McAfee has released a new report focused on the cost of cybercrime and its impact on global economies – both the overt costs as well as less obvious losses.
Through their research, McAfee estimates the annual global cost of cybercrime at around $945 billion, or just over 1% of global GDP. Add this to global spending on cybersecurity, expected to exceed $145 billion in 2020, and cybercrime is now a trillion dollar drag on the global economy. The research was conducted through a partnership with The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and survey of 1,500 global IT decision-makers.
However, 90% of companies reported hidden costs that went beyond monetary losses — including major reductions in productivity and lost work hours:
· The cost of downtime: The time during which technology and systems cannot be used at their normal level of functionality, with the average cost to organisations from their longest amount of downtime being $762,231.
· Lost work hours: Organisations lost, on average, 9 work hours when experiencing the downtime.
· Additional hidden costs: McAfee was able to pinpoint costs of cybercrime beyond the ransom; including everything from setting up new systems, to litigation, to cyber risk insurance, incident response team costs and more.
The full report can be found here: https://www.mcafee.com/enterprise/en-us/assets/reports/rp-hidden-costs-of-cybercrime.pdf
Our report findings show just how important it is for businesses to shore up their defences against cyberattacks. The costs aren’t just the result of monetary losses, but also include significant reductions in both productivity and lost work hours. When businesses fail to maintain and evolve their cyber defences, it is now the difference between their ability to thrive or just survive within the market.
To keep cyber attackers at bay, especially as their tactics evolve to become even more sophisticated, businesses must go beyond establishing baseline protocols to create and maintain a secure environment. This includes the use of risk intelligence to prioritise threats, predict which malware campaigns will be launched against them, and pre-emptively improve their defensive countermeasures. This will allow organisations to get ahead of adversaries and better manage their cyber risk.
Moving forwards, it’s vital that business leaders consider cyber as an investment, rather than a cost. When done well, implementing the right security does far more than protect against the losses outlined in this report. It becomes an incredible driver of business growth, innovation and resiliency.