The cost of cyberattacks is set to spiral out of control and hit US$8 trillion for global businesses in the next five years, a new study has warned.

The report, compiled by Juniper Research, found that higher levels of connectivity and inadequate security responses will be the root cause of the astronomical rise. To put the spiralling costs into perspective, the World Bank estimated that the total GDP of Australia stood at US$1.34 trillion in 2015.

The research also forecasts that the number of personal data records stolen by cyber criminals will reach 2.8 billion in 2017 and will almost double to five billion records in 2020. SMEs are at particular risk from cyberattacks, spending less than US$4,000 on cyber security each year with only marginal increases expected over the next five years.

Research author James Moar said that the recent Wannacry cyberattack highlights the need for businesses to remain up to date on software and security.

“Businesses of all sizes need to find the time and budget to upgrade and secure their systems, or lose the ability to perform their jobs safely, or at all,” Moar said.

The research found that ransomware, like the Wannacry attack, is becoming increasingly popular with cyber criminals. Juniper noted that ransoming data is becoming easier and more valuable than stealing data as ransomware is rapidly developing with simple-to-use toolkits that require little or no programming knowledge.


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