Data breaches to cost global economy $2 trillion by 2019

Data breaches are set to cost the global economy as much as $2 trillion in the next five years.

New research from Juniper says North America, which houses the bulk of the technology industry, will take the biggest hit of more than three-quarters of the cost.

That's just over 2 percent of the world's gross domestic product of the IMF's forecast that year.

Western Europe will also suffer a significant ding to its finances, if data breach forecasts pan out.

It may seem like a small segment of the global economy, but that's a significant chunk effectively handed to cyber criminals because of poor corporate and network security.

Although denial-of-service attacks -- where networks are downed through overloading systems with too much traffic -- can be costly, the report said criminals stealing business or personal records has a far greater impact on the economy -- even if there's no immediate financial gain from the theft.

Banking and financial, government, and medical and healthcare industries rank as the more lucrative verticals to target.