Cybersecurity

Malicious Cyber Activity Could Cost U.S. Up to $109 Billion Per Year

Malicious cyber activity could cost the U.S. between $57 billion and $109 billion a year, according to a study from the Council of Economic Advisers.

The study finds that malicious activity is costing the economy up to $109 billion each year, and that most activity directed toward public and private entities manifests as denial of service attacks. It also says that scarce data and insufficient information sharing impede cybersecurity efforts and slow down the development of the cyber insurance market, and firms often share common cyber vulnerabilities, causing cyber threats to be correlated across them.

The report defines malicious cyber activity as anything that seeks to compromise or impair the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of computers, information or communications systems, networks, physical or virtual infrastructure controlled by computers or information systems. It says that cyber threats fall into six broad groups: nation-states, corporate competitors, hacktivists, organized criminal groups, opportunists and company insiders. It quotes Verizon’s 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report, which noted that 75 percent of recent cyber incidents and breaches were caused by outsiders, while 25 percent were performed by internal actors. Overall, 18 percent of threat actors were state-affiliated groups, and 51 percent involved organized criminal groups.