REPORT: Economic Impact of Cybercrime and Cyber Espionage

McAfee and the Center for Strategic and International Studies have issued a new report called, “The Economic Impact of Cybercrime and Cyber Espionage.”

The report finds cybercrime and cyber espionage costs the US over$100 BILLION a year and over a half-million US jobs:

. . . . If the workers displaced by cyber espionage do not find jobs that pay as well or better, the victim country would be worse off.

Analysis by the Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration found that in 2011, $1 billion in exports equaled 5,080 jobs.

Since the total number of workers in the United States ranges between 135 million to 145 million, this means that the high-end estimate of $100 billion in losses from cyber espionage would translate into 508,000 lost jobs and the effect of cyber espionage on employment might be roughly a third of a percent decrease in employment.

Rather than the aggregate number of jobs, the real concern might be if the lost jobs are in manufacturing or other high paying sectors.

The effect of cyber espionage may be to move US workers from high paying blue collar jobs into lower paying work or even unemployment.

More importantly, if our rough estimates of loss and of the cost in jobs are right, and since they are relatively small, it may point to the real damage from the theft of intellectual property.

The greatest damage and risk from malicious cyber activity may not be in terms of direct damage to the victim country, but the illicit benefit obtained by the acquiring country, whose economic development and ability to compete globally (economically and perhaps militarily) are increased and accelerated through illegitimate means. . . .

REPORT: The Economic Impact of Cybercrime and Cyber Espionage (.pdf)

CSIS Releases First Study to Connect Cybercrime to Job Loss (CSIS)

Event and video: Estimating the Cost of Cyber Crime and Cyber Espionage

Cyber crime costs global business ‘hundreds of billions’ says McAfee (Computing)

Cybercrime costs U.S. economy up to $140 billion annually, report says (LA Times)