Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The Increasing Frequency and Costs of Cyberattacks in the
United States
In the autumn of 2012, Hewlett-Packard was wrapping up a security survey of
56 companies. Data from this survey were published in an article by Matthew
Schwartz in
Information Week
on October 8, 2012, and republished in the Inform-
ation Week Security online newsletter on November 28, 2012.
According to these data, the average damage from a cyberattack against the 56
survey respondents was about $8.9 million. This was an increase of 6% from 2010
and 38% from 2009.
Alarmingly, these 56 companies were receiving about 102 attacks per week.
This is up from 72 weekly attacks in 2010 and 50 weekly attacks in 2009.
Cleanup and recovery after an attack takes an average of about 24 business days
and costs an average of $591,000. This is an increase of 42% from the 2011 cost
of $416,000 for recovery. The increase is probably due to the increase in attack
sophistication.
In August 2012, General Keith Alexander, the Director of the National Security
Agency and head of the U.S. Cyber command, gave a public speech at the Amer-
ican Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. He commented that cyberattacks and
recovery are costing the United States about $250 billion per year. The figure
seems to be escalating.
The bottom line about cybercrime and cyberwarfare in today's world is alarm-
ing:
• Cybercrime is one of the most widespread forms of crime in human his-
tory.
• Cybercrime is the most global kind of crime in human history.
• Cybercrime is the longest-range form of crime in human history.
• Cybercrime has harmed more companies than all other white-collar
crimes.
• Cybercrime may soon have more human victims than any other crime.
• Cybercrime is increasing in frequency faster than any other kind of crime.
• Cyberwarfare aims at civilian targets as well as military targets.
• Cyberwarfare military groups are expanding faster than any other military
group.
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