Cyber attacks are draining as much as %140 billion and as much as half a million jobs from the US economy. "That's our best guess", said James Andrew Lewis, the director of the technology and public-policy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

With the help from cybersecurity giant McAfee, the center completed a study and came up with the figures by relying on models, such as those used to estimate the economic effects of car crashes and ocean piracy, instead of surveys of companies. Lewis called reliance on surveys faulty.

"We believe the CSIS report is the first to use actual economic modeling to build out the figures for the losses attributable to malicious cyberactivity", said Mike Fey, executive vice president and chief technology officer at McAfee.

What the report looked at was intellectual property theft, phishing and text messaging fraud, loss of sensitive business information, service disruptions, security costs and damage to reputations.