Numbers, numbers, numbers

“The global cyber insurance market was worth nearly $15 billion last year and is expected to reach roughly $28 billion by 2030, Munich Re estimated in its latest report. Aon said earlier this year that nearly 20% of cyberattacks will involve generative AI by 2027, according to its forecasts.”

Here is the article, via Marc Pfeiffer.  Now those are some concrete numbers, broadly taken from a market context, admittedly based on sectoral estimates rather than on prices per se.  But if cyberinsurance expenditures are set to almost double by 2030, you might think that cyber costs more generally might be (very) roughly doubling as well.  The 20% of cyberattacks involving generative AI does not itself pin down losses, since that 20% might be especially costly.  Still, if you match the 20% rise to the estimated near doubling of the cyberinsurance market (the bigger potential losers are more likely to buy insurance?), you still end up with sums that are very high but, dare I say, not the end of life as we know it.  Claude 5.1 for instances estimates current U.S. cybersecurity costs in the range of $100 to $300 billion, and of course that is slated to go up a fair amount.  It could double over five years’ time, as indicated above.

Numbers!  Thank goodness.

One way of looking at that estimate is to think that cyber costs will go up about thirteen percent a year, and eventually defense will catch up.  Another perspective is that cyber costs may continue rising thirteen percent a year until the whole economy falls apart, or we return to the pre-digital era (which I remember well).  So there are both optimistic and pessimistic reads on the above figures.

You can say Nicholas Decker is burning in hell, or that the AIs are a civilization, but what I really want are some numbers.  Tied to market data, ideally.  I am not saying the numbers above are the right numbers, but I am saying they are better than no numbers at all.  Do you have some numbers for me?  If not, why not?