Tel Aviv: The State of Israel's economy suffers a 12 billion Shekel ($3.3 billion) annual loss due to cyber attacks, according to a new report issued by the country's National Cyber Directorate.

Alongside this, the Directorate report presents new studies that show that the chance of an attack in an organization can be reduced by 30-50 per cent if the organization invests in a number of basic protection measures.

The amount presented in the report is based on an analysis of the costs of handling damage from an attack in the short term such as payments to an initial response team; direct financial loss costs from the attack such as downtime, data recovery and legal advice; as well as costs in the medium-long term such as future loss of income, loss of business opportunities, damage to reputation, lawsuits and damage to a third party. The analysis refers to various types of attacks that resulted in business damage to the organization in a "top-down" and a "bottom-up" approach.

"The data show for the first time the great economic burden on the national product that cyber-attacks have and the cumulative damage to the economy. If steps were not taken to increase the level of cyber protection at the level of the individual citizen and organization, the costs will continue to increase year by year with the continuation of technological development in all areas of life," explains Shlomo Sarfati, chief economist at the National Cyber System.

"The understanding of the costs of the damage will support the making of policy decisions in the field and will also help to calculate the balanced steps in investing in the issue at the national level."

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