Cybercrime to Cost the World $10.5 Trillion Annually by 2025

Quick Overview: Cybercrime is accelerating fast, with global damages expected to reach $10.5 trillion a year by 2025. This surge is driven by rising data breaches, ransomware, and targeted attacks across high-risk industries. Here, we’ll break down the cost of cybercrime, the industries most affected, and the strategies organizations need to reduce their growing security costs.

Despite rapid advances in cybersecurity, the global cost of cybercrime continues to surge, projected to hit $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, according to Cybersecurity Ventures. This staggering number clearly shows us how important security is for businesses across every sector.

From phishing to data breaches, cyberattacks are evolving faster than most defenses can keep up. It results in financial losses, reputational damage, and long-term trust erosion that no organization can afford to ignore.

What makes this threat even more alarming is its scale. Cybercrime today impacts everyone starting from startups to Fortune 500s. Additionally, the global cost of cybercrime will grow each year as attackers get smarter, tools get cheaper, and data becomes more valuable.

In this article, we’ll break down how cybercrime reached this $10.5 trillion mark, which industries are most at risk, and the top attacks that happen. Plus, you will learn how to reduce the cost of damage due to cybercrime.

Keep reading this article for more information about the global cost of cybercrime annually.

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What is Included in the Global Cost of Cybercrime?

When we talk about the cost of cybercrime, it's so much more than just stolen credit card numbers. The actual cost of cybercrime is massive, with the biggest parts hidden beneath the surface. Let's break down where all that money really goes.

Financial Theft

This is the most direct and visible part of the cost of cybercrime. The attackers steal money through fraudulent transfers, phishing attacks, or compromised financial systems. For many organizations, this is just the starting point because for them, financial impact often runs much higher than the stolen amount.

Data Loss and Recovery

When cybercriminals breach a network, data is often stolen, corrupted, or wiped out completely. The recovery process is expensive and time-consuming, especially for companies dealing with sensitive customer or healthcare data. The global cost of cybercrime spikes when you factor in the hours and resources spent trying to restore what was lost.

Business Downtime

Every minute of downtime costs money. When systems are locked or taken offline due to an attack, operations stop. For SaaS companies and digital businesses, this means lost revenue and missed service commitments, all of which add to the growing cybercrime cost worldwide.

Ransomware Payments

Ransomware has become a multi-billion-dollar industry in itself. Companies under pressure often pay to regain access to critical systems or data. But paying doesn’t guarantee full recovery, and it often invites repeat attacks. These payouts form a large part of the annual cost of cybercrime that continues to rise globally.

Brand Damage

The hidden costs of cybercrime are often tied to reputation. A single breach can destroy years of trust with customers, investors, and partners. Even if systems are restored, rebuilding brand credibility takes time, and that lost trust has a real monetary value that’s hard to measure but impossible to ignore.

Legal and Compliance Fines

After a breach, security compliance penalties can quickly add up. Non-compliance with data protection laws like GDPR or HIPAA can cost millions. Add class-action lawsuits and settlement costs, and the total impact becomes a major contributor to the overall damage caused by cybercrime.

Factors Contributing to The Rise in Cybercrime Costs

Cybercrime is fueled by how fast we’ve gone digital and how slow we’ve been to secure it. Here are the main factors driving up the global cost of cybercrime today.

Increased Digital Dependency

Every part of modern business now runs on digital systems. Cloud storage, remote work tools, and connected devices have expanded our attack surface like never before. The World Economic Forum notes that our growing digital dependency is a major driver of global cyber risk.

API and SaaS Misconfigurations

As more companies rely on SaaS platforms and APIs, security misconfigurations have become one of the biggest causes of data exposure. In 2025, a report found that 99% of organizations experienced API-related security incidents within the past year. If you want to prevent security misconfigurations, keep every API discovered and ensure that they have the correct access controls.

Supply Chain and Third-Party Breaches

A breach in one partner’s system can easily cascade through an entire network. In fact, around 35.5% of all breaches in 2024 were linked to third-party access. When a supplier or vendor is compromised, it can cause downtime, customer data loss, and regulatory fines. That means third-party risk management is now just as important as securing internal systems.

Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS)

Nowadays, ransomware has evolved into commercial operations. RaaS platforms make it easy for anyone to launch attacks without deep technical skills. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, the RaaS model is one of the top cyber threats shaping 2025. The result is a surge in frequency and sophistication of attacks, which continues to push up the cost of cybercrime every year.

AI-Powered Phishing Attacks

Attackers are now using AI to craft more convincing deepfake attacks and phishing scams. These tactics exploit human trust and are increasingly hard to detect. Also, reports show that social engineering contributes to more than 60% of breaches worldwide. With AI improving the precision, this number will rise, leading to major attacks.

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The Rise in Cost of Cybercrime (2015 → 2025)

The cost of cybercrime damage was $3 trillion in 2015, and it’s projected to be $10.5 trillion by 2025. That’s more than a threefold leap in just a decade. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, the global annual cost of cybercrime is now expected to grow by about 15% per year.

This steady surge reflects how deeply digital systems are now tied to every part of business and society. Each year, new technologies bring speed and convenience, but they also create more entry points for attackers. As organizations digitize faster than they can secure, cybercrime continues to grow into one of the world’s largest economic threats.

2025 Global Cybercrime Damage Costs: Complete Breakdown

The global cost of cybercrime is projected to reach $10.5 trillion in 2025, a number so massive that it’s hard to grasp without context. To put it into perspective, that’s more than the GDP of most countries combined. Every minute, millions are lost to data breaches, ransomware, and digital fraud.

Here’s how that $10.5 trillion breaks down from yearly damage to losses per minute and second.

Now that we’ve seen how massive the total impact is, let’s look closer at where this cost actually comes from. Below is a breakdown of the most common and costly attack types driving these global losses, from phishing scams to large-scale data breaches.

Phishing & Spoofing

Phishing remains one of the most common ways attackers infiltrate organizations. According to one report, the average cost of a phishing-originated breach in 2025 is about US $4.88 million. More than 3.4 billion phishing emails are sent each day, and phishing is involved in around 36 % of all cyber breaches. That means even one successful click can start a chain of damage that piles into the global cost of cybercrime.

Ransomware Attacks

Ransomware has grown from high-profile incidents to a near-industrial scale threat. In 2024, the average ransom demand exceeded US $2.5 million. One source reports that in 2025, the average cost to recover from a ransomware incident (excluding the ransom itself) was around US $1.53 million. A report also shows that ransomware accounted for 35 % of all attacks in a given period, with an 84 % increase year-over-year in that slice.

Data Breaches

Data breaches remain one of the most damaging forms of cybercrime. Verizon’s 2023 DBIR reported 5,199 confirmed breaches and 16,312 incidents worldwide, with the MOVEit breach alone exposing millions of records. IBM’s 2023 report found that the average cost of data breach was $4.45 million, up 15% in three years. Healthcare saw the highest impact at $10.93 million per breach, followed by finance at $5.9 million, with most breaches taking over 200 days to detect.

Business Email Compromise

Business Email Compromise (BEC) remains one of the costliest forms of cybercrime globally. In these attacks, criminals impersonate executives or trusted vendors to deceive employees into transferring funds or sharing sensitive information. According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), global BEC losses have surpassed $50.5 billion, making it the most expensive fraud type reported.

Malware (Non-Ransomware)

Malware beyond ransomware continues to play a major role in cyberattacks. While exact dollar figures for non-ransomware malware in 2025 are less publicized, it's clear this category remains deeply embedded in attack chains. For example, phishing is noted as delivering malware in up to 94 % of cases in some reports. Plus, non-ransomware malware often leads to data theft or system compromise, contributing to the global cost of cybercrime.

Here is the estimated average cost of the top attacks that add to the global cybercrime cost.

Note: These numbers are approximate and can vary based on the source.

The Cost of a Cybercrime by Industry

Cybercrime does not impact every industry the same way. Some sectors face higher risks and heavier financial losses because of the type of data they handle or the systems they run. Here’s a quick look at the industries that bear the largest share of global cybercrime costs.

Healthcare

The healthcare sector continues to bear the highest average cost when a cyber-incident occurs. According to IBM, the average data breach cost for healthcare hit US $10.93 million in 2023. That high figure is driven by sensitive patient data and strict regulations.

Finance

Financial services remain a prime target, and for good reason. The average cost of a data breach in this sector reached roughly US $6.08 million in 2024. Banks, fintech, and insurers hold high-value assets and face strict regulatory scrutiny, so even small errors can escalate.

Government & Critical Infrastructure

Government agencies and critical infrastructure operators face attacks that impact several companies. For instance, IBM reports that breaches in critical infrastructure industries often exceed US $5 million on average.

Manufacturing

The manufacturing sector has its own cyber-risk profile, particularly due to IT/OT convergence, supply-chain exposure, and production downtime. One report shows the average cost of a data breach in manufacturing is about US $4.24 million.

Strategies to Minimize Cybercrime Costs

You can reduce the cost of cybercrime by taking a few practical, proactive steps. Here are some proven strategies that help teams stay ahead of threats before they turn into losses.

Continuous Security Validation

Security isn’t something you check once a year. Continuous security validation helps organizations test and confirm their defenses in real time. By simulating real-world attacks, teams can identify gaps before attackers do. It’s one of the most effective ways to reduce the overall cost of cybercrime, as it prevents small vulnerabilities from turning into million-dollar breaches.

Threat Exposure Management

Managing your threat exposure means knowing exactly what attackers can see and fixing it fast. Modern threat exposure management combines vulnerability scanning, prioritization, and continuous monitoring to minimize blind spots. Instead of reacting after an incident, organizations can proactively measure and reduce their risk surface, keeping both security and cost under control.

Penetration Testing and Exploit Validation

Traditional vulnerability scans can only detect known vulnerabilities. Automated penetration testing goes a step further by showing how real those risks actually are. This approach helps separate critical threats from false positives, ensuring security teams focus where it matters. Regular testing also strengthens compliance posture and prevents the kind of vulnerabilities that lead to cyberattacks.

Employee Training and Awareness

Even the best technology can’t protect against human errors. Most breaches begin with a simple mistake, like clicking on a phishing email. Therefore, continuous employee training builds security awareness across teams and reduces the risk of cybercrime. Investing in this layer not only prevents incidents but also saves huge recovery and downtime costs over time.

Data Backups and Incident Response

When a breach or ransomware attack happens, quick recovery is everything. Secure, isolated data backups and a tested incident response plan can mean the difference between hours of downtime and total data loss. Organizations that prepare for the “what if” minimize damage, recover faster, and keep the financial impact of cybercrime well below industry averages.

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Summing Up

The $10.5 trillion cybercrime forecast for 2025 is not just another number. It reflects how deeply technology and risk are now intertwined. Every industry, from healthcare to finance, is under high risk, as attackers grow faster, smarter, and more organized.

The only way to keep your software product or organization secure is by taking preventive measures. You can do that by performing continuous pentesting and fixing the issues on a priority basis.

Identifying and closing security gaps in your web apps, APIs, and cloud environments before attackers find them can save you from heavy losses. With platforms like ZeroThreat, you can validate security vulnerabilities and fix them by following the remediation steps. It can help you with compliance and minimize the risk of damage that can be caused by a cyberattack.