Global cyber-attack would cost businesses billions

A new report has produced findings in which it claims that a coordinated global cyber attack could cause economic damage of between £65-96 billion.

In the hypothetical scenario developed for Lloyds of London and Aon, findings showed that a malicious campaign similar to those of real-life ransomware (such as WannaCry and Not Petya) could spread around the world incredibly quickly and cause devastating damage in its wake.

The scenario involved an infected email which once opened forwards itself to all contacts. It estimated that within 24 hours, data on 30 million devices worldwide could be encrypted and business owners faced with the prospect of paying a ransom or losing their data.

The impact on those businesses through reduced operation, productivity, consumption, ransomware payments and disruption to the supply chain was estimated to be in the tens of billions with businesses most heavily impacted in Europe and North America.