Global cybercrime costs billions, new estimates suggest

July 28, 2013

Cybercrime and espionage could be costing the world between $70 billion and $400 billion a year from a total global economy of $70 trillion, a new estimate by the Center for Stategic and International Studies (CSIS) has calculated. In the context of the U.S. economy, the damage caused by it is possibly equivalent to 500,000 jobs displaced but in truth the McAfee-sponsored study The Economic Impact of Cybercrime and Cyber Espionage admits that even coming up with these numbers is prone to be defeated by a raft of imponderables. Seeking clearer estimates What the researchers were determined to do was calculate the negative effects using something more substantial than the unsatisfactory surveys often used by security vendors to describe cybercrime, the CSIS said. The first context is, what do other negatives cost economies? In the U.S., for instance, car crashes cost somewhere between $99 billion and $168 billion a year, depending on which official estimate and year is used. Similarly, illegal drug trafficking is a $600 billion global industry. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2045388/global-cybercrime-costs-billions-new-estimates-suggest.html#tk.rss_all