Study: Cyberattacks Pile Up $300 Billion in Losses Each Year

Estimating the cost of cyberattacks is a daunting task. In 2009, McAfee published a study that estimated the costs of cybercrime and cyberespionage at a whopping $1 trillion to the world economy per year. Since then, that number has been cited by President Obama and other politicians when talking about the threats of cybercrime and cyberespionage

Four years later, that estimate has been severely reappraised. The cost is realistically closer to $300 billion, according to a report published Monday (.PDF) by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and commissioned by McAfee.