Referring to a report of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), o White House announced (PDF) on Friday that cyberattacks (cyber attacks) cost the US economy from $ 57 billion to $ 109 billion in 2016.
The assessment includes damages caused by various activities, such as DDoS attacks, data breaches, ransoms, infrastructure damage, loss of working hours, theft of private data, intellectual property and sensitive financial and strategic information.
Previous studies have shown that most cyber incidents are targeted online businesses, and affect their operations, mainly due to the delay in transactions between customers and the company.
The lack of appropriate security measures has helped the attackers a lot, but not as much as the secrecy of the companies, who choose not to report the hacks and share the information with security services, and other companies at risk.
The CEA report considers this data exchange to be a critical factor in today's market, mainly because most companies tend to use the same tools in their infrastructure - which often contain vulnerabilities.
Disclosure of cyberattack details will not only help victims fight the attackers but also speed up the development of cyber security measures, according to a White House statement.
Nevertheless, the CEA report expects things to get better, as companies have identified the rising costs of dealing with cyberattacks, so they have started adding more money to their security budgets.
Morgan Stanley estimates that cyber spending will double from $ 56 billion in 2015 to $ 128 billion by 2020.
The amount will probably not be enough if companies do not change their tactics in dealing with crises. Of course, it is a bit difficult to believe that companies that are victims of attacks will come out to complain about what they have suffered, but in view of the above, it is probably necessary, especially among experts.
