PREVIEW:

How criminals monetize their crimes
Cybercrime pays.

A cyber criminal’s ‘business plan’ is simple: plot an attack, steal/abuse/impact computing-based resources, execute the assault without getting caught, and pass the costs to others. So effective is this plan, in 2021 alone, experts estimate cybercrime cost the world $6 trillion USD¹ By comparison, one source pegs the entire security tools market at around $150 billion by 2025.² About 80 percent of all cyber attacks originate from organized-crime gangs including state-sponsored Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups.³

These lofty figures validate that cybercrime is lucrative, spurring huge increases in attack threats. Check Point Research (CPR) said customers cited a 50 percent jump in overall attacks per week on their corporate networks compared to 2020.⁴ The cyber pandemic in 2021 saw the year begin with the massive Sunburst hack against U.S. government agencies and corporations. It was followed by a rash of various ransomware attacks that included supply chain attacks, multiple extortion schemes, and Ransomware as a Service (RaaS) exploits. The year ended with the explosive Log4j code module vulnerability attack that crippled server networks around the globe.

“Before COVID, we ran our life 50/50 between the physical and cyber worlds, during the pandemic, it became 90/10. Now it is about 80/20. COVID made cyber threats more dangerous.” –Gil Shwed, CEO, Check Point Software

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