Cybersecurity Ventures Forecasts Cybercrime Will Cost World USD$12.2T Yearly by 2031
To Put That Amount into Context, It Is Just a Little Less Than the GDP of the World's Two Most Powerful Economies
Cybercrime is predicted to cost the world USD $10.5 trillion in 2025, according to the “2025 Official Cybercrime Report” from Cybersecurity Ventures.
If it were measured as a country, then cybercrime would be the world’s third largest economy after the U.S. and China. This represents the greatest transfer of economic wealth in history, risks the incentives for innovation and investment, is exponentially larger than the damage inflicted from natural disasters in a year, and will be more profitable than the global trade of all major illegal drugs combined.
Global cybercriminal activity has grown so large that, after years of rapid expansion, Cybersecurity Ventures believes the sector’s sheer economic weight will see growth plateau at 2.5 percent annually through 2031, at which point cybercrime will cost the world USD $12.2 trillion annually.
“Cybercrime costs include damage and destruction of data, stolen money, lost productivity, theft of intellectual property, theft of personal and financial data, embezzlement, fraud, post-attack disruption to the normal course of business, forensic investigation, restoration and deletion of hacked data and systems, reputational harm, legal costs, and potentially, regulatory fines, plus other factors” said Steve Morgan, Founder of Cybersecurity Ventures.
Cybercrime Is Evolving with the Times
Worse, cybercriminals have proved resourceful in adapting to the changing enforcement environment.
“Based on the inconsistent laws and difficulty in prosecuting, cybercrime unfortunately is easy to commit and very hard, if not impossible, to stop,” said Dr. Eric Cole, a former CIA hacker and Founder of cybersecurity consultancy Secure Anchor, sponsor of the report.
To understand the magnitude of the modern cybersecurity threat, it is instructive to think of the global cybercrime industry as a country. Cybersecurity Ventures calls this rogue state Cyber Rica. With gross domestic product (GDP) of USD $10.5 trillion this year, Cyber Rica’s economy is one-third of that of the U.S.—whose GDP this year will be around USD $30 trillion—and two-thirds as large as that of China, with GDP of USD $19.2 trillion.
For any other country, such accumulation of wealth would be a laudable achievement—but the massive amount of money at play in Cyber Rica comes at the expense of the citizens and businesses of other countries, who face relentless and unceasing assault from crypto scammers, data-scraping botnets, credential theft, identity theft, card theft, and the outright extortion that once-straightforward ransomware has now become.
“When the founding fathers created the constitution, they did not envision the digital data and digital infrastructure that we have today,” Cole said, noting that laws must continue to evolve to meet the privacy and security challenges of today’s cybersecurity environment.
“We are at war,” he added, “and government, companies, and individuals are all potential targets of cybercrime. It does not matter who you are or what you do; everyone must recognize they are a target and cybersecurity is their responsibility.”
