The economics of cybersecurity : a practical framework for cybersecurity investment

Conservatively, $15 billion is spent each year by organizations in the United States to provide security for communications and information systems. [Market Research 2013; Gartner 2013] Despite this investment, the economic impact of cyber breaches continues to be very large. In 2009, President Obama estimated the economic impact of cyberattacks at over $1 trillion/year or about 6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States. [Obama 2009] More conservative estimates of the economic impact from cyberattacks put the losses at a hundred billion dollars per year. [Reference: Friedman 2011; Gorman 2013] Regardless of the exact dollar impact, loss due to attacks against cyber systems is clearly a significant drain on the US economy and organization resources.