This TED Talk features cybersecurity expert Caleb Barlow, recorded live at TED at IBM, 2016.

Cybercrime is out of control.

It's everywhere.

We hear about it every single day.

This year, over 2 billion records lost or stolen.

And last year, 100 million of us, mostly Americans, lost our health insurance data to thieves,

myself included.

Now, what's particularly concerning about this is that in most cases, it was months before anyone even reported that these

records were stolen. So if you watch the evening news, you would think that most of this is espionage

or nation-state activity. And, well, some of it is. Espionage, nation-state activity and well some of it is espionage you see is an accepted international practice

but in this case it is only a small portion of the problem that we're dealing with how often do we hear about a breach followed by it was the

result of a sophisticated nation-state attack? Well, often, that is companies not being willing to

own up to their own lackluster security practices. There is also a widely held belief that by blaming an attack on a nation state,

you are putting regulators at bay, at least for a period of time.

So where is all of this coming from?

Well, the United Nations estimates that 80% of it is from highly organized and ultra-sophisticated criminal gangs.

To date, this represents one of the largest illegal economies in the world, topping out at now get this, $445 billion.

Now let me put that in perspective for all of you.

$445 billion is larger than the GDP of 160 nations,

including Ireland, Finland, Denmark, and Portugal, to name a few.

So how does this work? How do these criminals operate? Well, let me tell you a little

story. About a year ago, our security researchers were tracking a somewhat ordinary but sophisticated

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