Free Essay on the Economic Impact Of Cybercrime: At $600 Billion and Counting

E-crime is a term used to refer to the economic impacts of cybercrimes. An article published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in partnership with McAfee, indicates that the cost associated with cyber-crimes has tremendously grown in the last couple of years. The article indicates that as of 2017, the global community had lost close to $445 billion and $600 billion (Lewis). This is close to one percent of the total global GDP. The report also mentions that the growth in cybercrimes may be attributed to the rise in adopting new technology.

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The article also indicates that cybercrimes are unlikely to stop any time soon. It suggests that those behind these cybercrimes are as sophisticated as the technological advancements made by various Information Technology companies which have adopted cloud computing, encryption, software-as-a-service and artificial intelligence (Lewis). Cybercrimes are considered too easy since the technology users fail to take necessary protective steps, and as such, many of their devices lack the necessary defenses. The report also highlighted that cybercriminals use both sophisticated and simple technology to identify their targets before they steal from them.

Apart from the adaptation of new technologies by cybercriminals, other factors promote the growth of cybercrimes. One of these reasons is the growth in the number of online users. The other is increased ease of committing cybercrimes with the introduction and growth of cybercrime-as-a-service. The number of cybercrime centers has also expanded with the addition of India, Brazil, Vietnam, and North Korea. Monetization has also been made easier because of the growing financial sophistication among top cybercriminals (Lewis). The article also provided data that indicates the estimated daily activity (in dollars) for some of the top cybercrimes in the world. Malicious scams accounted for 80 billion; new malware at 300, 000; phishing at 33, 000; Ransomware at 4,000 and records lost to hacking at 780,000 (Lewis, 5).

This report came at a time when the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) released their report that estimated that malicious cyber-activities cost the United States government between $57 billion and $109 billion in 2016. In 2017, the average cost of cyber-crimes to companies in the United States was estimated to be around $21 million (Kerner).

It is evident that cybercrimes continue to have a massive impact on the global economy. At this rate, e-crimes may have some of the worst effects on both local and international governments where a single economy loses billions to cybercrimes. Therefore, there is a need to a long-term solution that will help mitigate the current situation. At an organization's level, which happens to be one of the biggest targets by cybercriminals, there is a need for the management to appreciate the value of the business IP address. This means that organizations need to start coming up with ways to ensure that they safeguard their IP addresses in a manner that prevents them from being hacked or interfered with.

Organizations also need to secure employee and customer data. In the past cybercrimes have gotten their hands on private client and employee information which results to further breaches. The government needs to come up with awareness programs that emphasize the importance of securing personal gadgets by its citizens. Apart from industries, cybercriminals are known to target private citizens as well.

Works Cited

Kerner, Sean M. "Global Cost Of Cyber-Crime Reached A New High Of $600 Billion In 2017". Eweek, 2018, http://www.eweek.com/security/global-cost-of-cyber-crime-reached-a-new-high-of-600-billion-in-2017. Accessed 16 Oct 2018.

Lewis, James A. "Economic Impact Of Cybercrime". Csis.Org, 2018, https://www.csis.org/analysis/economic-impact-cybercrime. Accessed 16 Oct 2018.