In 2024, the most common type of cybercrime reported to the United States internet Crime Complaint Center was phishing, with its variation, spoofing, affecting approximately 193,000 individuals. In addition, over 86,000 cases of extortion were reported to the IC3 during that year. Dynamic of phishing attacks Over the past few years, phishing attacks have increased significantly. In 2024, over 193,000 individuals fell victim to such attacks. The highest number of phishing scam victims since 2018 was recorded in 2021, approximately 324 thousand.Phishing attacks can take many shapes. Bulk phishing, smishing, and business e-mail compromise (BEC) are the most common types. With the recent development of generative AI, it has become easier to craft a believable phishing e-mail. This is currently among the top concerns of organizations leaders. Impact of phishing attacks Among the most targeted industries by cybercriminals are healthcare, financial, manufacturing, and education institutions. An observation carried out in the fourth quarter of 2024 found that software-as-a-service (SaaS) and webmail was most likely to encounter phishing attacks. According to the reports, almost a quarter of them stated being targeted by a phishing scam in the measured period.

In 2024, the number of data compromises in the United States stood at 3,158 cases. Meanwhile, over 1.35 billion individuals were affected in the same year by data compromises, including data breaches, leakage, and exposure. While these are three different events, they have one thing in common. As a result of all three incidents, the sensitive data is accessed by an unauthorized threat actor. Industries most vulnerable to data breaches Some industry sectors usually see more significant cases of private data violations than others. This is determined by the type and volume of the personal information organizations of these sectors store. In 2024 the financial services, healthcare, and professional services were the three industry sectors that recorded most data breaches. Overall, the number of healthcare data breaches in some industry sectors in the United States has gradually increased within the past few years. However, some sectors saw decrease. Largest data exposures worldwide In 2020, an adult streaming website, CAM4, experienced a leakage of nearly 11 billion records. This, by far, is the most extensive reported data leakage. This case, though, is unique because cyber security researchers found the vulnerability before the cyber criminals. The second-largest data breach is the Yahoo data breach, dating back to 2013. The company first reported about one billion exposed records, then later, in 2017, came up with an updated number of leaked records, which was three billion. In March 2018, the third biggest data breach happened, involving India’s national identification database Aadhaar. As a result of this incident, over 1.1 billion records were exposed.

The dataset "Cybersecurity Cases in India" is a comprehensive collection of real-world cybersecurity incidents reported across various cities in India. The dataset encapsulates the financial loss, incident types, and categories, providing a detailed overview of the cybercrime landscape in one of the world’s largest digital economies. With over 1000 records, it spans incidents from 2020 to 2024, covering various types of cybercrimes such as phishing, online fraud, malware attacks, ransomware, data breaches, DDoS attacks, identity theft, and more. Each record captures important attributes of the incidents, such as the year, date of occurrence, amount lost in INR, the type of incident, the city in which it occurred, and the category of the affected entity (e.g., financial, personal, corporate).

The dataset is structured to enable analysis of the trends in cybercrime over time, the financial impact of various cyberattacks, and the geographic distribution of incidents across Indian cities. It serves as a critical resource for cybersecurity professionals, policymakers, law enforcement agencies, and academic researchers seeking to understand the challenges posed by cybercrime in India and to identify strategies to combat these challenges.

1. Dataset Purpose and Scope

The dataset’s primary purpose is to provide an extensive, granular view of the nature and scope of cybersecurity incidents in India. It enables the analysis of the frequency, severity, and financial impact of cybercrimes across different types of attacks, cities, and time periods. As cybercrimes continue to rise globally, including in India, this dataset serves as an important tool for understanding the evolving threats and risks in cyberspace. Cybersecurity experts and analysts can leverage this dataset to identify patterns and trends, while government and law enforcement agencies can use it to devise more targeted interventions and preventive measures.

India, with its large and growing digital footprint, is a prime target for cybercriminals. The country's rapidly expanding internet user base, coupled with increasing digital adoption in various sectors like finance, healthcare, education, and e-commerce, makes it an attractive target for cyberattacks. This dataset allows stakeholders to understand how cybercrime evolves in response to these dynamics.

The dataset is a rich resource for understanding the following:

• Incident Frequency: How often different types of cybercrimes are reported in various Indian cities.
• Financial Impact: The monetary losses associated with each type of cybercrime.
• Geographic Distribution: The prevalence of specific types of cybercrimes in particular cities or states.
• Trend Analysis: How cybercrime has evolved over the years in terms of volume and impact.

2. Dataset Structure and Variables

The dataset includes the following key variables, each contributing valuable information to the analysis:

• Year: The year in which the cybercrime incident occurred. This variable helps track the growth or decline of cybercrime incidents over time.
• Date: The specific date of the cybercrime incident. This allows for time-series analysis of the data.
• Amount_Lost_INR: The financial loss associated with the cybercrime incident, expressed in Indian Rupees (INR). This variable highlights the economic impact of each cyberattack and can be used to assess the severity of different incidents.
• Incident_Type: The type of cybercrime incident. This can include phishing, online fraud, malware attacks, ransomware, data breaches, DDoS attacks, and identity theft. This variable is crucial for understanding which types of cybercrimes are most prevalent and how they differ in their impact.
• City: The city where the incident occurred. This allows for the geographic analysis of cybercrime, helping to identify high-risk areas and cities where certain types of cyberattacks are more common.
• Category: The category of the entity affected by the cybercrime, such as financial institutions, government bodies, corporations, educational institutions, or individuals. This variable provides insights into which sectors are more vulnerable to specific types of cyberattacks.

3. Cybersecurity Threat Landscape in India

India's digital transformation has made it a prime target for cybercriminals. As of 2023, India is one of the largest internet markets in the world, with over 600 million active internet users. The rapid growth of e-commerce, digital banking, social media, and government services has created new opportunities for cybercriminals to exploit vulnerabilities in digital systems. According to a 2022 report by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), India witnessed a significant increase in cybersecurity incidents, with millions of cyberattacks targeting individuals, b...

India saw a significant jump in cyber crimes reported in 2022 from the previous year. That year, over ****** cyber crime incidents were registered. Karnataka and Telangana accounted for the highest share during the measured period. Uttar Pradesh leads the way The northern state of Uttar Pradesh had the highest number of cyber crimes compared to the rest of the country, with over * thousand cases registered with the authorities in 2018 alone. India’s tech state, Karnataka, followed suite that year. A majority of these cases were registered under the IT Act with the motive to defraud, or sexually exploit victims. It's a numbers game It was estimated that in 2017, consumers in India collectively lost over 18 billion U.S. dollars due to cyber crimes. However, these were estimates based only on reported numbers. In a country like India, it is highly likely that the actual figures could be under-reported due to a lack of cyber crime awareness or the mechanisms to classify them. Recent government initiatives such as a dedicated online portal to report cyber crimes could very well be the main factor behind a sudden spike in online crimes from 2017 onwards.

The largest reported data leakage as of January 2025 was the Cam4 data breach in March 2020, which exposed more than 10 billion data records. The second-largest data breach in history so far, the Yahoo data breach, occurred in 2013. The company initially reported about one billion exposed data records, but after an investigation, the company updated the number, revealing that three billion accounts were affected. The National Public Data Breach was announced in August 2024. The incident became public when personally identifiable information of individuals became available for sale on the dark web. Overall, the security professionals estimate the leakage of nearly three billion personal records. The next significant data leakage was the March 2018 security breach of India's national ID database, Aadhaar, with over 1.1 billion records exposed. This included biometric information such as identification numbers and fingerprint scans, which could be used to open bank accounts and receive financial aid, among other government services.

Cybercrime - the dark side of digitalization As the world continues its journey into the digital age, corporations and governments across the globe have been increasing their reliance on technology to collect, analyze and store personal data. This, in turn, has led to a rise in the number of cyber crimes, ranging from minor breaches to global-scale attacks impacting billions of users – such as in the case of Yahoo. Within the U.S. alone, 1802 cases of data compromise were reported in 2022. This was a marked increase from the 447 cases reported a decade prior. The high price of data protection As of 2022, the average cost of a single data breach across all industries worldwide stood at around 4.35 million U.S. dollars. This was found to be most costly in the healthcare sector, with each leak reported to have cost the affected party a hefty 10.1 million U.S. dollars. The financial segment followed closely behind. Here, each breach resulted in a loss of approximately 6 million U.S. dollars - 1.5 million more than the global average.

For the fiscal year 2024, the estimated cybersecurity spending of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was more than three billion U.S. dollars, making it the largest budget among the CFO act government agencies, excluding the Department of Defense. The cybersecurity spending of the Department of Defense (DoD) was not reported since the fiscal year 2022. Overall cybersecurity spending in the United States is projected to increase in 2023 with the total estimated agency cybersecurity funding for that year amounting to 10.46 billion U.S. dollars.

U.S. government and cyber security spending The White House released a National Cyber Strategy in September 2018. The overall increase in cyber security spending strongly correlates with the White House’s plan to increase military spending. However, the DoD is the only department with such a significant increase in cyber security spending in FY 2020; most civilian agencies are preparing for budget cuts. Overall, cyber security spending of the U.S. government on CFO Act and non-CFO Act agencies, excluding the Department of Defense, is projected to increase from 9.84 billion U.S. dollars in FY 2022 to 10.89 billion U.S. dollars in FY 2023.

Cybercrime in the U.S. Representing one of the largest digital populations worldwide, the United States reports a considerable number of cyber attacks each year. According to a 2021 survey, nearly 60 percent of online users in the country had experienced any cyber attack, ranking it the third country worldwide by share of cybercrime. In the most recent reported year, around 294 million internet users in the United States were impacted by incidents of data violation. Network intrusion was the most common type of cyber attack across the country.

In 2022, the state of Telangana in India had the highest number of reported cybercrimes compared to the rest of the country, with over ****** cases registered with the authorities. The country recorded over ****** cases of cybercrime that year, marking a significant increase compared to about ****** cases in 2016. Cybercrime in India The growing digital economy has created new opportunities for cybercriminals by introducing higher complexity or widening the scope of digital aspects in our daily lives. India is no exception, for example, the number of people arrested and charged for cybercrime across India in 2021 showed a wide spectrum of criminal charges including but not limited to blackmailing, forgery, sexual exploitation, or counterfeiting. Studies also indicated small businesses to be likely targets of such crimes. Combating cybercrime The country led in the encounter rate of cybercrimes, with **************** internet users reporting having experienced a cybercrime, compared to the world average of about four out of ten internet users in 2022. As the government pushes for a digital India, cybersecurity has become the need of the hour. Special initiatives such as the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, which helps to coordinate the efforts in combating cybercrime, as well as initiatives to raise public awareness and build institutional capacity to cope with it, have been funded by the government.

In 2023, it took three days on average for the occurrence to the discovery of cyber incidents in the companies in the United States. In most cases, companies reacted quickly, by taking the cyber attack under control. Further on, it took the organizations 33 days on average to complete the forensic investigation of the attacks. The longest the companies needed, was the time to notify about the cyber incident, which took 60 days on average.

During the third quarter of 2025, data breaches exposed more than ** million records worldwide. Since the first quarter of 2020, the highest number of data records were exposed in the third quarter of ****, more than **** billion data sets. Data breaches remain among the biggest concerns of company leaders worldwide. The most common causes of sensitive information loss were operating system vulnerabilities on endpoint devices. Which industries see the most data breaches? Meanwhile, certain conditions make some industry sectors more prone to data breaches than others. According to the latest observations, the public administration experienced the highest number of data breaches between 2021 and 2022. The industry saw *** reported data breach incidents with confirmed data loss. The second were financial institutions, with *** data breach cases, followed by healthcare providers. Data breach cost Data breach incidents have various consequences, the most common impact being financial losses and business disruptions. As of 2023, the average data breach cost across businesses worldwide was **** million U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, a leaked data record cost about *** U.S. dollars. The United States saw the highest average breach cost globally, at **** million U.S. dollars.

Over *********** cases of cyber crime across India were reported to the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) via the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP) in 2024. The number of cyber crimes in the country saw a massive spike between 2021 and 2022 and has been on the rise ever since. Roughly *** billion Indian rupees were lost in financial fraud cases spanning from 2023 to 2024.

The global indicator 'Estimated Cost of Cybercrime' in the cybersecurity market was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total *** trillion U.S. dollars (+***** percent). After the eleventh consecutive increasing year, the indicator is estimated to reach ***** trillion U.S. dollars and therefore a new peak in 2029. Notably, the indicator 'Estimated Cost of Cybercrime' of the cybersecurity market was continuously increasing over the past years. Ransomware and manufacturing industry Cyberattacks remain a significant challenge for organizations worldwide, sectors such as manufacturing, finance, and insurance were the most affected by these attacks. Among the various types of cyber threats, ransomware was the most frequently detected, accounting for around ** percent of all incidents. The manufacturing industry, in particular, faced the highest number of ransomware attacks, making it the most targeted sector globally. Cybersecurity awareness and investments Organizations worldwide became increasingly aware of the dangers posed by cyberattacks, approximately ** percent of internet users became familiar terms such as with "ransomware." In response to these threats, companies invested more in cybersecurity. In 2024, the average annual increase in IT security budgets was expected to reach *** percent. In fact, for companies worldwide, enhancing the cyber resilience of their cybersecurity teams was the top spending priority in 2023.

In 2022, India ranked first among researched countries worldwide by the number of identity theft cases with an estimated 27.2 million adults victims during the period. The United States followed, with approximately 13.5 million consumers having encountered identity theft that year. Japan followed, with three million annual identity theft victims.

As of 2022, 11 threat groups were known to mainly target industrial sectors, such as manufacturing, utilities, government, and educational institutions. The first such groups detected were Xenotime and Kamacite, both operating since 2014. Each threat group impacted the industrial control systems (ICS) of targeted organizations. In 2022, the Chernovite threat group, identified in 2021, developed Pipedream, the seventh known Industrial Control System (ICS) and Operational Technology (OT) capability meant to disrupt and potentially destroy industrial processes.

In 2024, manufacturing saw the highest share of cyberattacks among the leading industries worldwide. During the examined year, manufacturing companies encountered more than a quarter of the total cyberattacks. Organizations in the finance and insurance followed, with around 23 percent. Professional, business, and consumer services ranked third, with 18 percent of reported cyberattacks. Manufacturing industry and cyberattacks The industry of manufacturing has been in the center of cyberattacks in a long time. The share of cyberattacks targeting organizations in this sector in 2018 was at 10 percent, while in 2024, it amounted to 26 percent. The situation is even more compliacted when we look at the cyber vulnerabilities found in this sector. In 2024, critical vulnerabilities in manufacturing companies lasted 205 days on average. IT perspective and prevention With recent technology developments, cybersecurity is crucial to an organization’s success. Realizing this, companies have been gradually increasing cybersecurity investments. Thus, in 2024, the cybersecurity budget worldwide was forecast to increase to nearly 283 billion U.S. dollars. Roughly nine in ten board directors of companies worldwide in professional services and media and entertainment industries say they expect an increase in the cybersecurity budget.

In 2024, about **** million cyber threats via web browsers were detected and foiled in the Philippines, reflecting a significant decline from the previous year's total of roughly **** million threats. The number of web threats detected and blocked in the Philippines nearly doubled between 2019 and 2020.

The Indian capital city of Delhi reported the highest number of harassment cases against women of over *** cases in India in 2022. Among its major cities, Mumbai and Bangalore followed in the country during the measured time period. According to a survey in 2019, India ranked highest in the list of dangerous countries for women. This comes as no surprise, with over *** thousand reported crimes against women in that year alone.