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Cyberattacks Could Cost Global Economies As Much As Some Disasters

Insurance market Lloyd's of London warns that a major cyberattack could cost more than Hurricane Katrina.

By: Ethan Weston

Posted at 3:09 PM, Jul 18, 2017

and last updated 2017-07-18 15:09:15-04

Cyberattacks have the potential to be as costly to the global economy as some natural disasters, according to the world's oldest insurance marketplace.

Lloyd's of London found that cyberattacks on cloud services like Google Cloud Platform could cost as much as $120 billion in damage.

That means, at its worst, an attack could far exceed the cost of Hurricane Katrina.

Lloyd's also looked at a scenario similar to last month's WannaCry ransomware attack. At its most extreme, Lloyd's said, a similar attack could cost nearly $29 billion.

Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab says the June attacks infected over 2,000 computers worldwide.

Insuring against cybercrimes is fairly new, and Lloyd's warns that most of the losses from these types of cyberattacks would not be covered.