On Jan. 31, 2012, Eric Engleman and Chris Strohm reported for Bloomberg on the costs of cybersecurity. The article cited a Bloomberg government report that analyzed the costs behind protecting critical infrastructure. The Bloomberg government report concluded that in order to stop 95% of cyberattacks, critical infrastructure owners would have to "boost spending to a group total of $46.6 billion from the current $5.3 billion."
The article noted that the financial sector would face the largest increase in cybersecurity spending. Specifically, financial companies' cybersecurity costs would increase from $22.9 million to $292.4 million per company.
You can find the Bloomberg source article here.
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More interesting cybersecurity numbers in another Bloomberg article written by Brian Wingfield:
The same Bloomberg report (mentioned above) found that 21 energy companies spent about $45.8 million a year on computer security. That protects these companies from about 69% of known cyberattacks.
These same companies estimated that they could increase that percentage to 88% if they increased spending to $69.3 million per company.
To stop 95% of cyberattacks, the energy companies would need to spend $344.6 million per company on cybersecurity.
However, the article makes an important point: the largest U.S. utility (by market cap.) made about $277 million in profit as reported in their fourth quarter earnings statement.
Is a profit driven energy company going to fork over more than a quarter of its profits to increase cybersecurity?
You can find the second Bloomberg article here.
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