Cybercrime among top global risks – WEF

MANILA, Philippines - The World Economic Forum (WEF) has raised cybercrime as among the major global risks within the decade, aside from unemployment/underemployment, and extreme weather conditions.

Increasing reliance on the Internet and the explosive growth in devices that are connected to it has intensified the risk of massive systemic failure or “cybergeddon,” the WEF in a report warned.

Cybercrime damages trade, competitiveness, innovation, security, and global economic growth.

The same report called for better security standards and protection versus data misuse, hacking and privacy breaches.

A McAfee (Intel) report said that global cybercrime is costing the global economy at least $500 billion each year, almost equal the estimated cost of drug trafficking.

It is also indirectly responsible to unemployment as evidence by reports that cyber crime is catalyst behind loss of as many as 500,000 US jobs as companies grapple with the loss of covered intellectual property, confidential strategies stolen, suffer reputational harm.

“Extracting value from the computers of unsuspecting companies and government agencies is a big business,” the Intel unit said.

Admitted victims of cybercrime include Google, Facebook, Apple, The New York Times, while unconfirmed reports also indicate cyber attacks on NYSE Euronext, New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq OMX Group.

Meanwhile, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said that the Internet economy annually generates between $2 trillion to $3 trillion. But cybercrime extracts between 15 to 20 percent of the value created by the Internet.

There are over two billion Internet users, individual, corporate and sovereign.

Cyber criminals target financial systems, going after automated teller machines (ATMs), online bank accounts, and credit cards. The center said that one Russian gang took $9.8 million from ATMs in a labor day weekend, and the chief planner is not only at large, authorities still has no knowledge of his or her identity!

Global losses connected to “personal information” breaches could reach $160 million. In fact, 40 million individuals in the US have had their personal information stolen by hackers.

In the Philippines, the public is somewhat protected by Republic Act (RA) 10175, otherwise known as The Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.

There is, however, a handful of insurance companies in the Philippines that offer insurance protection against cybercrime.

These insurers offer protection for businesses against damages related to cyber criminality such as its impact on data privacy regulation, increasing reliance on technology and online transaction, information stored online, and company system linked to the Internet.

The AIG offers cybercrime insurance protection from legal action due to breach of Data Privacy Act 2012, and hacking and virus attack.

Cyber security is another way of dealing with the global risk but business for example face a number of structural and organizational issues complicate the process of implementing business-driven, risk-management-oriented cyber security operating models.

Cyber security touches every business process and function, not only in operations but also in customer care, marketing, product development, procurement, human resources, and public affairs.