Hacking the World – Part 4: The Cost and Future of Hacking (Plus: Safety Tips)
Each week in October, as part of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, we’ll publish an article packed with facts and stats, to give you an in-depth look at the state of cybersecurity in today’s world. We’ll start with the basics, then cover vulnerabilities, risks, costs – and much more.
We finish our four-part Hacking the World serie with two key questions: how much does hacking cost the world at large, and what’s coming up next? We’ll cover some of the biggest, costliest data breaches and then take a peek at what the future holds for hacking. To round out your read, we’ve also compiled a few basic cybersecurity tips, to help keep you cybersafe.
Before looking ahead, a reminder that we’ve covered the basics, what’s being hacked (with Covid updates), and the who and where of hacking. For a refresher of key hacking terms and definitions, read our helpful cybersecurity glossary from Part 1.
Jump to a section below, or read on:
The Cost of Hacking
The Future of Hacking
Safety Tips to Prevent Cyberattacks
The Bottom Line
The Cost of a Breach
Data breaches cost time and money. Lots of it.
In addition to covering the immediate damages of a cyberattack, companies must pay out compensation and data protection fines, all while investing in cybersecurity systems. The downtime and consequently lost business of a breach add substantial costs too.
The Growing Cost of Cybercrime
The monetary damages of cybercrime are already sky-high and they’re only heading in one direction.
More and more, businesses are turning to digital solutions. Expect cyberattacks to advance in complexity and regularity as companies pursue fresh web-based systems and cybersecurity departments play catch-up.
Top 10 Costliest Breaches
It’s only right that we take a look at some of the most financially devastating breaches of all time.
The costliest breach on this list is Equifax, though, when we dig into the numbers, data breach costs can be somewhat of a grey area.
Sometimes costs are not completely disclosed or are not entirely calculable. Experts predicted that Epilson’s data breach could reach a whopping $4 billion, for example, while the Marriott breach may have cost closer to $1 billion…
