While the Center for Strategic & International Studies and McAfee estimated the annual cost to the global economy from cybercrime at $375 billion conservatively and $575 billion maximally as of June 2014, at least one expert stands by cost figures that are many times those numbers.
“U.S. companies and the U.S. economy lose approximately $500 billion each year to theft of trade secrets and innovation. This includes all forms of economic espionage where cybercrime plays a major factor. When you factor the 10-year life of the investment in innovation, the total value of the theft reaches $5 trillion or one-third of the U.S. GDP – each year,” says T. Casey Fleming, CEO, BLACKOPS Partners Corporation, a Washington, D.C.-based Information Security Advisor to senior executives & boards of the Fortune 500, U.S. government agencies, and universities. Read on as Adapted from the CIO