What would you think if we told you it’s just not lucrative enough to be a drug lord any more? You might laugh, but there’s a dark industry eclipsing the global illicit drug market as of the last few years. You got it – it’s hacking.
Cybersecurity losses are expected to hit over $2 trillion in 2020. That figure was just $1.2 trillion in 2019… roughly twice the size of global drug trade weighing in at $600 billion. Now cybercrime represents more than three times that figure. In just one year. Let that sink in.
Businesses and other organizations globally have spent a dismal $80 billion on cybersecurity services in 2019 by comparison. That’s like buying arm-floaties when a tsunami is heading your way.
In 2015, Ginni Rometty, IBM’s Chairman and CEO at the time, said something profound that was maybe not taken seriously enough at the time:
“We believe that data is the phenomenon of our time. It is the world’s new natural resource. It is the new basis of competitive advantage, and it is transforming every profession and industry. If all of this is true – even inevitable – then cyber crime, by definition, is the greatest threat to every profession, every industry, every company in the world.“
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevemorgan/2015/11/24/ibms-ceo-on-hackers-cyber-crime-is-the-greatest-threat-to-every-company-in-the-world/#569e1f7e73f0
Pretty heavy words for the time… but that was at the “start your engines” end of the Moore’s Law curve. Now it’s 2020, baby! It’s the year of coronapocalypse, natural disasters, raging political wars, locust swarms, earthquakes, famines, mass international rioting and hell, even an asteroid is going to come alarmingly close to earth on the eve of our upcoming U.S. elections. What’s one more major catastrophe waiting to happen? We got this! We’re hardened survivors by now…
Enter Cybercrime 2021...
With financial activity doubling in one year, you might say there’s a dark cloud forming over the state of digital business, and much more so now with the migration from office to home office. Not to make this article even more frightening, here are some statistics that really matter if we’re going to paint a picture of cyber crime in 2021.
1. More than 70% of all cyber attacks target small and medium businesses.
As if that wasn’t enough, the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) reports that 60% of hacked small and medium businesses will go out of business after six months.
2. 56% of users who know phishing risks click on risky content anyhow.
FAU research indicates that up to 56% of email recipients and around 40% of Facebook users click links from unknown contacts – purely out of curiosity. Except this time it won’t kill the cat… it’ll kill your business.
3. The FBI have stated that Cybercrimes have increased by 300% since the start of COVID-19.
If a crippling pandemic wasn’t enough, the FBI have found that cybersecurity complaints tripled since the start of the pandemic. A major part of these cybercrimes are COVID-19 related phishing attacks.
4. 90% of Cyber claims come from some type of human error.
Human error is just something that happens in this world. Your employee could leave their laptop open on a public transport or more likely, use unprotected software or Wi-Fi. Just teaching your employees some common sense when it comes to the way they use company electronics.
5. On average financial firms take 98 days to detect a data breech.
It takes time for your business to identify that you have been hacked. During that time the hacker can steal data, conduct surveillance thus increasing what this cyberattack will cost you.
6. Ransomware damages have increased more than 1500% in less than 24 months in 2015 and 2017… and over 5714% by 2020.
Damages exceeded $5 billion in 2017, true to a prediction by Cybercrime Magazine. The scarier statistic, however, is that damages from cybercrime have already surpassed an estimated $2 trillion in 2020… and they’re expected to rise to $6 trillion by 2021. That’s a staggering parabola.
7. If you don’t have the right team on your side, your business is vulnerable regardless of it’s digital security technologies.
That means you need the team inside your company to remain trained and vigilant against hacking attempts, and the right security partner to provide services such as training for your staff, regular penetration tests, and the dedicated human experience behind the technologies you implement.
