Bloomberg Business features the recently released report, Overcome by cyber risks? Economic benefits and costs of alternate cyber futures, on the annual costs of cyber disruptions and the incentives of connectivity, published by the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security and the Zurich Insurance Group:
As cyber hackers continue to add more and bigger notches to their belts and the losses for global businesses pile up, balance sheets are starting to reveal a shocking story. You needn’t look very far into the future to see a time when the annual costs of cyber security and responding to disruptions outweigh the economic benefits of conducting business in a connected world. According to a new report, the tipping point has already been reached in some of the world’s high-income economies. Less mature economies will follow within 15 years.
The report, “Risk Nexus: Overcome by Cyber Risks? Economic Benefits and Costs of Alternate Cyber Futures,” isn’t all doom and gloom. Despite the higher costs associated with connectivity on an annual basis, the benefits are the result of long-term investments that accumulate over time. In the report’s base case, the accumulated global benefits of being connected more than counterbalance the costs through the year 2030 by nearly $160 trillion—an 8 percent gain in global GDP between 2010 and 2030.