Pierluigi Paganini January 18, 2020

I’m preparing the slides for my next speech and I decided to create this post while searching for interesting cybercrime statistics in 2020

Cybercrime will cost as much as $6 trillion annually by 2021.

The global expense for organizations to protect their systems from cybercrime attacks will continue to grow. According to the Cybersecurity Ventures’ cybercrime statistics 2017 cybercrime damages will amount to a staggering $6 trillion annually starting in 2021. Experts fear that the cost of cybercrime should exceed annual costs for natural disasters by 2021. These figures suggest that cybercrime is becoming more profitable than other criminal activities, such as the illegal drug trade. 

Financial losses reached $2.7 billion in 2018.

According to the IC3 Annual Report released in April 2019 financial losses reached $2.7 billion in 2018. Most financially devastating threats involved investment scams, business email compromises (BEC), and romance fraud. 

The total cost of cybercrime for each company in 2019 reached US$13M.

The total cost of cybercrime for each company increased from US$11.7 million in 2017 to a new high of US$13.0 million—a rise of 12 percent, states the “NINTH ANNUAL COST OF CYBERCRIME STUDY” published by Accenture.

The total annual cost of all types of cyberattacks is increasing.

According to Accenture, malware and Web-based attacks continue to cause higher financial losses to organizations worldwide. The cost of ransomware attacks accounts for 21 percent of the overall expenses, while the cost of malicious insider accounts for 15 percent. The cost of malware attacks is now an average of US$2.6 million annually for organizations.

Which countries have the worst (and best) cybersecurity?

According to a the report published by Comparitech that used the Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) scores, Bangladesh saw the highest number of malware infections approximately 35.91% of the country’s mobile users have fallen victim to malware infections. The same report states that Japan is the most equipped country at preventing cybersecurity threats, with the smallest number of mobile malware infections, with only 1.34% of its mobile users affected by the attacks. Other top-performing countries included France, Canada, Denmark, and the United States.

Algeria is the least cyber-secure country, followed by Indonesia and Vietnam.

Which is the impact of cybercrime on small business?

According to the 2019 Data Breach Investigations Report, 43% of all nefarious online activities impacted small businesses. Giving a look at suffered by organizations, 69% of the attacks were perpetrated by outsiders, 34% involved Internal actors, 5% of them featured multiple parties, 2% involved partners.

According to the annual study conducted by IBM examining the financial impact of data breaches on organizations, the cost of a data breach has risen 12% over the past 5 years and now costs $3.92 million on average. These rising expenses are representative of the multiyear financial impact of breaches, increased regulation and the complex process of resolving criminal attacks. Small businesses with fewer than 500 employees lose an average of $2.5 million due to security incidents.

What about data breaches?

The majority of security breaches were financially motivated, 71%, while 25% of breaches were motivated by the gain of strategic advantage (espionage).

29% of breaches involved use of stolen credentials, 32% of them were the result of phishing attacks. 25% of breaches were motivated by the gain of strategic advantage (espionage)

What about malware?

…. let’s close with some malware statistics.

According to the Symantec 2019 Internet Security Threat Report, The number of attack groups using destructive malware increased by +25, the number of ransomware attacks increased by 12%, very concerning it +33% increase in mobile malware.

Bots and worms continue to account for the vast majority of Internet of Things (IoT) attacks, in 2018 Symantec reported a significant increase of targeted attack actors against smart objects confirming the high interest in IoT as an infection vector.

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – cybercrime statistics, hacking)

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