Can Blockchain Tech Block Cyber Crimes? – Part 3

This is part three of a 6-article series on blockchain technology potential to reduce cyber crimes. The first article covered the definition of cybercrimes and cyber security as well as quantified the problem that cybercrime represent for modern civilization.

This article covers a few interesting stats and in the next post we will address what many feel is the solution and we better move fast!

• Asia-Pacific companies receive 6 cyber threats every minute, according to Cisco. A Frost & Sullivan study commissioned by Microsoft revealed that the potential economic loss across Asia Pacific due to cybersecurity incidents can hit a staggering $1.745 trillion(USD).
• In a keynote at DevNet Create, Susie Wee, SVP and CTO of Cisco DevNet, shared research from Cybersecurity Ventures that estimates there are 111 billion lines of new software code being produced each year — which introduces potential for a massive number of vulnerabilities that can be exploited.  Zero-day exploits alone are predicted to reach one per day by 2021, up from one per week in 2015.
• The FBI reported that the Business Email Compromise (BEC), aka Email Account Compromise (EAC) — a sophisticated scam targeting both businesses and individuals performing wire transfer payments — has cost more than $12.5 billion in losses over the past 4.5 years (as of its last tally through May 2018).
• Less than half of companies globally are sufficiently prepared for a cybersecurity attack, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers report that surveyed 3,000 business leaders from more than 80 countries.
• The 5 most cyber-attacked industries over the past 5 years are healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, government, and transportation. Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that retail, oil and gas / energy and utilities, media and entertainment, legal, and education (K-12 and higher ed), will round out the top 10 industries for 2019 to 2022.
• Hacking tools and kits for cyberattacks, identity theft, malware, ransomware, and other nefarious purposes have been available in online marketplaces for several years — at price points starting as low as $1— which makes the cost of entry to a life of cybercrime nearly free.
• Ransomware damage costs are predicted to be 57X more in 2021 than they were in 2015. This makes ransomware the fastest growing type of cybercrime. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has described ransomware as a new business model for cybercrime, and a global phenomenon.
• The modern definition of the word “hack” was first coined at MIT in April 1955. The first known mention of computer (phone) hacking occurred in a 1963 issue of The Tech. Over the past fifty-plus years, the world’s attack surface has evolved from phone systems to so many digitally connected “things” that it’s outpacing our ability to properly secure them.
• The World Wide Web was invented in 1989. The first-ever website went live in 1991. Today there are more than 9 billion websites.
• The world’s digital content is expected to grow to 96 zettabytes by 2020 (this is how big a zettabyte is), up from 4 billion terabytes (4 zettabytes) just 3 years ago. With this kind of exponential growth, the opportunities — for innovation, and for cybercrime — are incalculable because data is the building block of the digitized economy.
• According to the latest Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI), by 2022, more IP traffic will cross global networks than in all prior “Internet years.” In other words, more traffic will be created in 2022 than in the 32 years since the Internet started. However, increased connectivity brings with it increased security challenges.
• Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that the total amount of data stored in the cloud — which includes public clouds operated by vendors and social media companies (think AWS, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), government-owned clouds that are accessible to citizens and businesses, and private clouds owned by mid-to-large-sized corporations — will be 100X greater in 2022 than it is today.
• The number of connected devices on the Internet will exceed 50 billion by 2020, according to Cisco. To put it another way, the number of IoT devices will be three times as high as the global population by 2021. And by 2022, 1 trillion networked sensors will be embedded in the world around us, with up to 45 trillion in 20 years.
• Hundreds of thousands — and possibly millions — of people can be hacked now via their wirelessly connected and digitally monitored implantable medical devices (IMDs) — which include cardioverter defibrillators (ICD), pacemakers, deep brain neurostimulators, insulin pumps, ear tubes, and more.

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