The Impact of Cybercrime
Cybercrime is the use of computers or the internet for illegal purposes such as hacking, extortion, online fraud, identity theft, viruses, cyberbullying, and more. It is a growing threat as humanity becomes more dependent on technology and criminals become more savvy in their techniques. The resulting impacts are felt by individuals, businesses and societies around the world.
On a purely economic level, cyber crime costs the global economy billions every year. The cost of cybersecurity software is one of the main factors, and also the cost of restoring stolen data and dealing with disruptions in service due to attacks on critical infrastructure.
A more serious impact of cyber crimes comes from the psychological toll. Whether through credit card fraud, identity theft, or cyberbullying, victims are left traumatized. In addition, many have given up using certain digital services because of fear that their personal information will be misused again. According to the CNIL, these “indirect” damages have a major impact on individual wellbeing and can lead to distrust of new technologies.
The damage can be even more widespread when it affects larger institutions such as hospitals, banks, universities and governments. These incidents can create a ripple effect that affects people in multiple countries, for example when a bank’s servers are breached and millions of customer accounts are compromised. They can also damage the reputation of the institution and raise questions about its security practices. This can cause customers to lose trust in the organization and may even leave them to seek alternative options.