The Global Cybercrime Industry As A Country

To understand the magnitude of the modern cybersecurity threat, it’s instructive to think of the global cybercrime industry as a country. In its ‘2025 Official Cybercrime Report‘, Cybersecurity Ventures calls this rogue state Cyber Rica.

With gross domestic product (GDP) of $10.5 trillion this year, Cyber Rica’s economy is one-third of that of the U.S. – whose GDP this year will be around $30 trillion – and two-thirds as large as that of China, with GDP of $19.2 trillion.

Third-place Germany, by contrast, will have a GDP of around $4.7 trillion this year – meaning that in 2031, the residents of Cyber Rica will be collectively stealing and causing harm that equals the GDPs of Germany, India ($4.2 trillion), and Japan ($4.2 trillion) combined.

For any other country, such accumulation of wealth would be a laudable achievement – but the massive amount of money at play in Cyber Rica comes at the expense of the citizens and businesses of other countries, who face relentless and unceasing assault from crypto scammers, data-scraping botnets, credential theft, identity theft, card theft, and the outright extortion that once-straightforward ransomware has now become.

The citizens of Cyber Rica, in other words, are leeches – taking from the world’s other residents but giving nothing back.

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