Cybercrime will cost global economy $11.4m per minute by 2021

By 2021, cybercriminals will cost the world $11.4m each minute, revealed the Evil Internet Minute 2020 report published by Attack Surface Management firm RiskIQ.

As the internet grows, so does the scale of threat activity targeting organizations according to the report, fueled by greater ease of entry into cybercrime and more opportunities to leverage global events like COVID-19 in successful threat campaigns.

RiskIQ took a closer look at the malicious activity that transpires across the world every 60 seconds. In its 2020 “Evil Internet Minute” security intelligence report RiskIQ highlights cyber-criminal activity online. The company calculated and analysed the volume of malicious activity on the internet which has cost the global economy $2.9 million every minute.

The Covid-19 pandemic has reportedly also affected this number.

In May, Security experts at Alphabet’s Google sent 1,755 warnings in April to users whose accounts were targets of government-backed attackers, following a resurgence in hacking and phishing attempts related to the coronavirus outbreak.

These accounts largely targeted business leaders in financial services, consulting, medical and healthcare professionals in numerous countries including the United States, Slovenia, Canada, India, Bahrain, Cyprus, and the UK, the company said.

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Further, the research suggested that cyber-attacks increased at a speed of 375 per minute. Meanwhile, every endpoint connected to the Internet faces 1.5 attacks per minute.

In terms of privacy breach around 16,172 records become exposed per minute and every 24 minutes a new vulnerability is discovered.

British budget airline EasyJet is a prime example of data breach, the company was also a target of cybercrime; hackers had accessed the email and travel details of around 9 million customers, and the credit card details of more than 2,000 of them, in a “highly sophisticated” attack.

Marriott International, a leading hotel operator, is also facing a London class action brought by millions of former guests demanding compensation after their personal records were hacked in one of the largest data breaches in history.

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Thirty-five spam emails related to Covid-19 become analysed each minute.

“The sheer scale of today’s threat activity is driven by a variety of factors, including that cybercrime is easier than ever to participate in and better threat technology makes cybercriminals more effective and wealthier than in the past…These stats show threat activity is widespread, but also show the power of threat intelligence in defending the enterprise,” said RiskIQ CEO Lou Manousos gave a statement with the Evil Internet Minute report.

“More knowledge, greater awareness, and an increased effort to implement necessary security controls make a huge difference in stopping these threat actors in their tracks.”

Hackers have stepped up their efforts to target major companies and the data they hold on customers.