The return of the digital mafia (..click here for Digital Mafia part I if you missed it), we talked about how lucrative the art has become but how lucrative has it really been, let’s have a look at some of the biggest hacks of our age, we need to get shocked because the amounts are only going to go up;
“We estimate that the likely annual cost to the global economy from cyber crime is more than $400 billion.1 A conservative estimate would be $375 billion in losses, while the maximum could be as much as $575 billion. Even the smallest of these figures is more than the national income of most countries and governments” McAfee link
Ransomware; “Security researchers estimate that, as of April 2014, Cryptolocker had infected more than 234,000 computers, with approximately half of those in the United States. One estimate indicates that more than $27 million in ransom payments were made in just the first two months since Cryptolocker emerged,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement about the multi-national takedown.
Target, esitmated 40 million users, total amount 148 million dollars, , HomeDepo 7.2 million customer data with 60 million dollars spent in reissuing cards, Staples e.t.c as they were hit with the POS malware and cost them more than 100 million dollars in damages
No. 4: JPMorgan Attack in July where personal data was accessed for more than 76 million households and 7 million businesses. Exposes 83 Million to Risk
On Oct. 2, financial giant JPMorgan Chase publicly acknowledged that its systems were hacked in an attack that exposed 76 million households and an additional 7 million small businesses to a data compromise.
More than $300 million. Prosecutors say the five men, who are from Russia and Ukraine, stole and sold at least 160 credit card numbers. … link
45$ million stolen in ATM fraud by hackers, “Unfortunately these types of cybercrimes involving ATMs, where you’ve got a flash mob going out across the globe, are becoming more and more common,” Rose Romero, a former federal prosecutor and regional director for the Securities and Exchange Commission, …link
“We lost £100,000 in under three minutes,” said AEV Managing Director Jonathan Kemp. “We started the day normally, and by the end of it there was utter horror.” It was one of the most sophisticated cyber crime campaigns ever mounted: a hacking spree that snared millions of victims worldwide and netted the gang behind it as much as half a billion pounds. Not content with raiding the bank accounts of their victims, the thieves blackmailed them, and then hijacked their computers to snare even more targets. …link
And the list goes on and on, the sheer amounts in millions and billions only go to show how survival is no longer becoming for the fittest but the richest
Simon Peter