We’ve talked a bit about cyberattacks and the need for cybersecurity over the last year, but now that this year is coming to a close, we thought we’d take a look at some numbers involved in cyberattacks and what the experts think the field will look in the coming years.
Cyberattacks have been on the rise and are expected to continue to do so. Monetary damages in 2016 totaled around $3 trillion. That’s expected to double by 2021.
Ransomware has gotten a lot of attention over the past year or so. Ransomware is a type of attack that usually comes in email attachments that, when opened, lock up your computer and don’t allow you to access your files until you’ve paid a ransom. To give you an idea of how much the problem has grown, 2015 saw about $325 million in ransoms paid out to hackers, which was up a whopping 1500% from 2013. 2017 is expected to be around $5 billion, and by 2019 it’s expected to be $11.5 billion.
One reason these attacks are costing more is the number of internet users. It’s currently estimated that 3.8 billion people use the internet, but by 2030 that number is expected to be 7.5 billion. That’s roughly 90% of the world population. With so many people online, there are a lot of targets for hackers to try to exploit.
Unfortunately, there’s a shortage of cybersecurity workers, which likely won’t get better. By 2021, experts think there will be a shortage of 3.5 million cybersecurity jobs. If you haven’t decided what you want to study in college, cybersecurity might not be a bad path to take.
That doesn’t mean companies are slacking in their cybersecurity efforts, though. Cybersecurity spending should hit $1 trillion by 2021.