McAfee released a new global report titled “The Hidden Costs of Cybercrime,” which focuses on the significant financial and unseen impacts that cybercrime has worldwide. The report, conducted in partnership with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), concludes that cybercrime costs the world economy more than $1 trillion, or just more than one percent of global GDP, which is up more than 50 percent from a 2018 study that put global losses at close to $600 billion.

The McAfee report findings are hardly surprising given the current economic situation. Businesses and consumers alike are digitising the way they conduct business day to day and cybercriminals are well poised to take advantage of this. In fact, our own Financial Crime Report (https://feedzai.com/blog/financial-crime-report-q4-2020-ai-revelations-on-fraud-commerce/) from Q4 showed that globally, card fraud rate increased by 61% from what it had been the six months preceding the Coronavirus outbreak. In addition, the card cloning fraud rate increased by 34%. Knowledge and speed across business sectors and financial institutions are essential to reduce cybercrime and make threat actors\’ attempts unprofitable – which ultimately is the best deterrent.