Cyber crime is a threat to global economy, says researcher

Halting cyber crime could have a positive impact on the global economy, according to Intel Security Europe security researcher and CTO Raj Samani.

“Some estimates put the cost of cyber crime to the global economy at more than $445bn, but the true cost is far greater as many countries do not report on this,” he told a NEDForum summit in London.

However, Samani suggested a better measure of the impact of cyber crime is in terms of job losses, currently estimated at more than 150,000 a year in Europe alone.

Even a single cyber attack can have a significant economic impact, he said, such as the attack on US retailer Target in 2013, which affected 40 million credit and debit cards.

Up to three million of the payment card details were believed to have been sold on the black market and used for fraud before issuing banks cancelled the rest.

Cyber crime is also increasingly affecting individuals whose bank accounts are raided, as banking institutions begin to take a harder line about what losses they will and will not cover.

“Banks are tightening up and reimbursements are no longer guaranteed, but despite this, the impact of cyber crime is still not widely known or fully understood,” said Samani.

His research has shown that traditional crime is becoming increasingly cyber-enabled, with a growing number of cyber crime services becoming available.

“The continual evolution of the cyber crime-as-a-service market means that criminals require little or no skill in cyber to benefit from cyber-enabled crime. They just need the means to pay,” said Samani.

Would-be cyber criminals are now even able to use mainstream online auction sites to purchase such services, which used to be available only from dark markets on the dark net.  

“Criminal services now provide all the research, crimeware and infrastructure necessary to carry out and benefit from cyber-enabled crime,” said Samani.

Some suppliers even provide crimeware on a low-cost rental basis that guarantees the latest functionality, backed by full support and possibly a service-level agreement.

“A distributed denial-of-service attack to take down a competitor can cost as little as $2 an hour, and yet have a substantial economic impact on the target company,” said Samani.