Auditing for Cybersecurity Risk

Steven Wertheim

Around the globe, cybercrime cost society over $3 trillion in 2018, and this cost is forecast to rise to $6 trillion by 2021 (“Cybercrime Damages $6 Trillion by 2020,” Cybersecurity Ventures, Dec. 7, 2018, http://bit.ly/2K6cC7k); that translates to a 43% year-over-year increase for each of the next three years. At $6 trillion, cybercrime will represent approximately 7% of worldwide GDP and will be the third largest component of the world economy, just behind the GDPs of the United States and China. U.S. ransomware costs have grown from $25 million in 2014 to over $8 billion in 2018 and are showing no signs of stopping (“Global Ransomware Damage Costs Predicted To Exceed $8 Billion In 2018,” Cybersecurity Ventures, June 28, 2018, http://bit.ly/30Oc3VE). Ginni Rommety, IBM's chairperson, CEO, and president, has stated that “cybercrime represents the greatest threat to every company in the world” (Steve Morgan, “IBM's CEO On Hackers: ‘Cyber Crime Is The Greatest Threat To Every Company In The World,’” Forbes.com, Nov. 24, 2015, http://bit.ly/2Ww6M5V).