Report: Cyber crime costs U.S. economy $100 billion a year

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last updated 8 January 2015

Cyber crime costs the global economy between $445 and $575 billion every year, and the U.S. is getting hit the hardest, losing $100 billion each year. A new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, places cyber crime "in the ranks of drug trafficking in terms of worldwide economic harm."

The report, which received funding from security firm McAfee, is one of the first efforts to analyze the economic damage cyber crime has on the world's bottom line. The figures are just estimates, since companies usually fail to report losses and no centralized data collection agency exists.

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Jordan Valinsky is the lead writer for Speed Reads. Before joining The Week, he wrote for New York Observer's tech blog, Betabeat, and tracked the intersection between popular culture and the internet for The Daily Dot. He graduated with a degree in online journalism from Ohio University.

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