Sberbank says hacker attacks double, 4% of industry digitalized

MOSCOW, Jul 6 (PRIME) -- Digitization of the Russian economy is only fully completed in 4% of industries, while the number of successful hacker attacks doubles every year and companies’ spending on cybersecurity will skyrocket by 14 times in the next few years, German Gref, head of Sberbank, the country’s biggest bank, said on Friday.

“Looking at all the industries, about 4% of them are fully digitized, and 96% are yet to be turned digital,” Gref said at the International Cybersecurity Congress.

The number of cyberattacks doubled in 2017 on the year despite constant growth of companies’ expenses on cybersecurity.

“Spending on cybersecurity by 2021 will reach about U.S. $1 trillion. The number of attacks and successful assaults is invariably rising, doubling every year regardless of growing cybersecurity costs,” Gref said.

Sberbank’s chief said earlier that the bank sees two key problems in cybercrime, which are social engineering and phishing. The most urgent issue is to teach people cybersecurity.

Gref also said that the cybersecurity industry will lack some 2 million specialists all over the world by 2022, and this problem could be solved with the application of the artificial intelligence technology.

Sberbank Deputy Chairman Stanislav Kuznetsov said earlier that damage to the Russian economy from cybercriminals could amount to 1.1 trillion rubles in 2018 and $1.5 trillion to the global economy.

(63.2604 rubles – U.S. $1)

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