In 2023, individuals over the age of 60 accounted for the highest number of recorded cyber crime victims in the United States. According to the latest data, more than 104,068 people reported cyber crimes in the year examined. The second-most targeted were individuals between 30 and 39 years, with over 88 thousand complaints.

In 2023, individuals over 60 years in the United States accounted for the highest amount of financial losses of reported cyber crime in the United States. People in this age group lost around 3.4 billion U.S. dollars. Despite filing the second highest number of complaints, cyber crime victims aged between 30 and 39 old did not have as high financial losses.

In 2023, investment fraud was the cybercrime causing the most severe financial damage for the individuals in the United States. Overall, victim losses in this category were over 4.5 billion U.S. dollars. Business e-mail compromise (BEC) ranked second, amounting to around 2.9 billion U.S. dollars in reported victim losses. A further 924 million U.S. dollars were reported in losses for tech support fraud victims.

A September 2023 survey of American adults found that three in 10 respondents had experienced financial fraud or cybercrime. Individuals between 35 and 54 years were more often targeted by financial cybercrime, with 36 percent stating so. Among the younger generation, individuals between 18 and 34 years, this share was lower, 22 percent.

In 2023, individuals aged 60 and older in the United States filed 17,810 complaints about tech support fraud cases. Approximately 7,300 victims reported incidents of personal data breach. Romance fraud was also frequently encountered by victims aged 60 and older in the measured year. Overall, the number of complaints about cryptocurrency crimes almost doubled compared to 2022.

In 2023, the most common type of cyber crime reported to the United States internet Crime Complaint Center was phishing and spoofing, affecting approximately 298 thousand individuals. In addition, over 55 thousand cases of personal data breaches cases were reported to the IC3 during that year. Dynamic of phishing attacks Over the past few years, phishing attacks have increased significantly. In 2023, almost 300 thousand 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. In 2023, 76 percent of the surveyed worldwide organizations reported encountering bulk phishing attacks, while roughly three in four were targeted by smishing scams. Impact of phishing attacks Among the most targeted industries by cybercriminals are healthcare, financial, manufacturing, and education institutions. An observation carried out in the first quarter of 2023 found that social media 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. Very often, phishing e-mails contain a crucial risk for the organization. Almost three in ten worldwide organizations that have experienced phishing attacks suffered from a customer or a client data breach as a consequence. Phishing scams that delivered ransomware infections were also common for the surveyed organizations.

In 2023, individuals aged 60 and older in the United States filed more than 12,000 reports of cybercrime, including cryptocurrency payments. A further 4,684 complaints of cybercrime linked to cryptocurrency wallets.

In 2023, the monetary damage caused by cybercrime reported to the United States' Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) saw a year-over-year increase of around 21 percent, amounting to a historical peak of 12.5 billion U.S. dollars. Cybercrime in the U.S. Cybercrime continues to be one of the biggest challenges for governments around the world. In the United States, phishing and personal data breaches were among the most reported categories of cybercrime in 2022, with over 300 thousand people falling victim to phishing attacks. Additionally, data breaches cost the U.S. organizations over nine million U.S. dollars on average as of January 2023. Identity theft is a serious issue in the U.S. Along with other reported online crimes, identity theft was a prevalent issue that affected millions of people in the United States. The country ranked second globally in reported cases of identity theft, with an estimated 13.5 million Americans falling victim to this crime. As a result, millions of users had their lives turned upside down. In January 2023, 43 percent of identity theft victims reported wasting their time resolving issues, while 33 percent had no choice but to freeze their credit cards. Furthermore, sometimes threat actors targeted seniors, as in 2022, more than 4800 individuals over 60 reported being victims of identity theft.

In 2022, around four in ten internet users worldwide have ever experienced cybercrime. Based on a survey conducted between November and December 2022, internet users in India were most likely to have fallen victim to cybercrime, as nearly 70 percent of respondents claimed to have ever experienced cybercrime. The United States ranked second, with almost half of the respondents, 49 percent, saying they had experienced internet crime.

In 2022, approximately 27,500 internet users in Italy were victims of cybercrime. Over 3,000 women aged between 45 and 54 years in Italy were victim of cybercrime. Across almost all age demographics, women and female kids were more likely to fall victim to cybercrimes. Young women aged between 18 and 24 years were more likely then men in the same age to be targeted by cybercrime in Italy in 2022: 2,100 women reported being targeted by cybercrime, against 1,700 men of the same age group.

A September 2023 survey of American adults found that the most frequently experienced type of financial cybercrime was credit card fraud, reported by roughly 64 percent of respondents. The breach of financial data was ranked second, followed by account hacking.

Between November 2022 and October 2023, over 30 thousand cybercrime incidents were detected worldwide. Of this total, over 900 cases involved small companies. The organizations in the public administration sector were the most affected among the industries researched, with reported 12,217 cybercrime cases. The finance sector ranked second, while the professional sector followed, with over 2,500 incidents in each industry.

In 2023, individuals aged 60 and older in the United States lost more than 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in online investment fraud, an increase from 990 million U.S. dollars in the previous year. This was the cybercrime type, causing the most significant monetary damage to the elderly victims. Tech support scams ranked second, causing the victims around 590 million U.S. dollars in losses. Romance scams followed third, registering nearly 356 million U.S. dollar losses in the examined year.

The Crime Victimization Survey, conducted in Israel in 2021, examines the level of personal security of individuals. The survey measures the victimization of individuals through reported and unreported crimes, and assists in the formation of data-based policies in this area. The most likely group of individuals to experience cybercrime are those with an academic degree. Those with a bachelor's degree are the most likely at 27 percent, followed by those with advanced degrees (M.A., Ph.D.) at 25 percent. The least likely to experience cybercrime, at 6.8 percent, are individuals with other (non-matriculation) educational attainment, including non-holders and the unknown.

According to a survey conducted in Israel in 2021, people aged 45-54 accounted for 8.1 percent of cybercrime victims. This age group had the highest share of cybercrime incidents victims among all age groups. On the other hand, cybercrime victimization among people aged 65 or older stood at a lower percentage, 4.2.

In 2023, the number of cybercrime victims in Spain went over 354,610. Cybercrimes in the country have been constantly growing, as the amount of victimizations already doubled in the period from 2018 to 2021, and currently account for over 19 percent of all felonies committed in the country.

In 2019, 39.5 percent of cybercrime victims within the region 4-a of the Philippines was scammed through fraudulent SMS or texts. In comparison, 50.2 percent have not been a victim of any cybercrimes.

This statistic shows the share of small and medium enterprise owners in the United States who said their business has been the victim of cybercrime, by crime type, based on the Statista survey conducted between September 28th and October 7th, 2016. 89.4 percent of those SME owners surveyed said their business had not been a victim of cybercrime. Of those that had been victims, the most common type of crime was customer data being stolen with 4.8 percent of respondents stating it had occurred to them.

In 2022, approximately 29,000 men aged between 45 and 54 years in Italy were victims of online swindles and cyber fraud. Women of the same age that fell victim to online fraud and internet scams were 23,347 in 2022. In comparison, approximately 850 teenagers between 14 and 17 years were victim of cyber fraud and online swindlers. Approximately across all age demographics, men and male kids were more likely to fall victim to online fraud in the last examined period.

India saw a significant jump in cyber crimes reported in 2022 from the previous year. That year, over 65 thousand cyber crime incidents were registered. Karnataka and Telangana accounted for the highest share during the measured time 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 six 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.