Cyber-attacks: Statistics and Implications
- March 31st, 2013
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Cyber-security and cyber-attacks have become more and more prevalent the past few years. Despite the split between those who see cyber-security as a growing issue and those who do not, the statistics on cyber-attacks prove to be quite staggering. According to the U.S. Cyber Command, there are approximately 250,000 cyber-attacks/probes on U.S. government networks every hour. To extrapolate those numbers, that means that every week there are about 42,000,000 attempted breaches on our networks and network systems.
Many of these attacks are successfully thwarted but there are some that get through and cause minor (or major) disruptions. The rhetoric that exists amongst cyber-security analysts is that there is a major issue at hand. Cyber-attacks are relatively inexpensive and do not necessarily have costs associated with a failed attack, outside of the failure itself. In most instances an attacker fails, and the target continues its operations without disruption. That said, it doesn’t matter if they fail 50 times so long as they succeed once because of the potential costs associated with a successful attack. On the other hand, those responsible for defending networks and network systems have to be successful 100% of the time, because even the slightest disruption in services could have widespread consequences depending on the type of attack and the target.
The statistics on cyber-attacks today give merit to the importance of cyber-security. With the number of attacks increasing the U.S needs to continue to place emphasis on its own cyber-security. As more areas become susceptible to attacks, so will the number of both state and non state actors participating in such attacks. The costs associated with these problems are too high to ignore.
http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2013/02/01/cyber-attacks-a-growing-threat-to-the-u-s-economy/
-Peter