Ride the Lightning

Hackers Estimated to Cost Global Economy $445 Billion in 2016

February 25, 2016

Crimes in cyberspace will cost the global economy $445 billion in 2016 — according to an estimate from the World Economic Forum's 2016 Global Risks Report.

A story from CNBC reports that the threat of state-sponsored attacks aimed at taking down critical infrastructure continues to worry experts, but many believe the bigger threat is posed toward U.S. business interests.

"U.S. companies are definitely under pressure, and I think it's related in large part to nation-state attacks," said John Haller, a cybersecurity researcher in the CERT division of the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute.

"This is not science fiction. It's a multibillion-dollar business of stealing intellectual property," said John Stewart, senior vice president, chief security and trust officer at Cisco. "We have got to be able to protect ourselves just that much better."

Hackers are far more skilled, organized and well-funded than ever before. They are getting better at finding weaknesses, penetrating security barriers and causing more damaging attacks once inside a company. Though stealing and reselling credit card numbers is still commonplace, cybercriminals are expanding into new areas using new tools and skills.

They are increasingly using encryption and ransomware to exhort money from victims and evade detection. It is not uncommon for them to spend months inside a company, siphoning off information and setting up back doors which can then be revisited or sold to other criminals with different capabilities. Hackers will then use that property to attack the corporation's customers or supply chain.

One example of a new target is the use of stolen financial information to undercut an acquisition target's market value in order to later acquire the company at a fire-sale price. This activity has been associated with Chinese hackers, said experts.

And a quote for the law firms out there:

"For example, if I hack into a major law firm and then realize that this law firm has direct communication channels with the Fortune 50, then I can leapfrog from this law firm into all of those entities," said Tom Kellermann, chief security officer at cybersecurity vendor Trend Micro.

Hat tip to Dave Ries

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