“Estimating the Cost of Cybercrime and Cyber Espionage”

We are plunged into the report commissioned by McAfee which quantifying the economic impact of cybercrime.

The surveys lead by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) have revealed some tough aspects of this phenomenon.

In fact, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has been engaged to build an
economic model and methodology to accurately estimate these losses, which can be extended worldwide.

According to the report, “Estimating the Cost of Cybercrime and Cyber Espionage” posits a $100 billion annual loss to the U.S. economy and as many as 508,000 U.S. jobs lost as a result of malicious cyber activity.

Connectikpeople has also observed that, to help measure the real loss from cyber attacks, CSIS enlisted economists, intellectual property experts and security researchers to develop the report. The researchers estimate the range for cybercrime loss to the global economy is between $100 billion and $500 billion.

They used real-world analogies like figures for car crashes, piracy, pilferage, and crime and drugs to build out the model. ‘’CSIS noted the difficulty of relying on methods such as surveys because companies that reveal their cyber losses often cannot estimate what has been taken intellectual property losses are difficult to quantify and the self-selection process of surveys can distort the results. ‘’

CSIS has classified malicious cyber activity into six areas:

• The loss of intellectual property
• Cybercrime
• The loss of sensitive business information, including possible stock market manipulation
• Opportunity costs, including service disruptions and reduced trust for online activities
• The additional cost of securing networks, insurance and recovery from cyber attacks
• Reputational damage to the hacked company

This means the cost of malicious cyber activity involves more than the loss of financial assets or intellectual property. There are opportunity costs, damage to brand and reputation, consumer losses from fraud, the opportunity costs of service disruptions, and the cost of increased spending on cybersecurity.

The copy of the full report is available here: http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/reports/rp-economic-impact-cybercrime.pdf.

About CSIS

CSIS is a bipartisan, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Center’s 220 full-time staff and large network of affiliated scholars conduct research and analysis and develop policy initiatives that look to the future and anticipate change.

About McAfee

McAfee, a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC), empowers businesses, the public sector, and home users to safely experience the benefits of the Internet. The company delivers proactive and proven security solutions and services for systems, networks, and mobile devices around the world. With its Security Connected strategy, innovative approach to hardware-enhanced security, and unique Global Threat Intelligence network, McAfee is relentlessly focused on keeping its customers safe.