Statistics on Cyber Security
In today's interconnected world, cybercrime has become an alarming and pervasive threat that affects individuals, businesses, and entire nations. As our reliance on digital technologies grows, so does the complexity and scale of cybercriminal activity.
According to Infosecurity Magazine, only 36% of organizations have visibility into the level of access and permissions of internal and external users to their systems. This puts the majority of companies at high risk of cyber attacks.
This article sheds light on the magnitude and impact of cybercrime. From ransomware attacks to identity theft and online scams, these statistics are a stark reminder of the urgent need for robust cybersecurity measures and increased awareness among individuals and organizations alike.
Here are the facts...
- 46% of all digital breaches target small businesses with 1,000 or fewer employees (GetAstra)
- Only 14% of small businesses are prepared to face a cyber-attack, and only 17% have cyber insurance. 64% are unfamiliar with cyber insurance (GetAstra)
- Average organizations took 286 days to identify and contain a breach in 2021 (IBM)
- 60 percent of small companies go out of business within six months of falling victim to a data breach or cyber attack
Public Opinion on Cybersecurity
- 73% of survey respondents believe ransomware attacks are the top cyber threat for the year (Global Affairs)
- The World Economic Forum (WEF) found that 59% of global cyber leaders would find it challenging to respond to a cybersecurity incident due to the shortage of skills within their team (Cybersecurity Ventures)
- Four in five Americans (83%) see preventing cyberattacks as a very important US foreign policy goal (Global Affairs)
- 64% of everyday Americans have never checked to see if they were affected by major data breaches (Varonis)
Cause of Cyberattacks
- 95% of cybersecurity issues can be traced to human error (WeForum)
- 20% of organizations experienced a breach because of a remote worker (CyberTalk)
- In 80% of all hacking cases, compromised credentials or passwords are to blame (GetAstra)
- 70% of online fraud is accomplished through mobile applications (GetAstra)
- 92% of malware is delivered via email
- In the U.S., LockBit accounted for 16% of attacks on public entities, which include municipal and county governments, public higher education and K-12 schools, as well as on emergency services like law enforcement agencies (The Record)
- About one in every six ransomware attacks targeting U.S. government offices in 2022 can be traced back to a single group: LockBit (The Record)
- It is said that 80% of reported cyber crimes are generally attributed to phishing attacks (GetAstra)
Cost of Cyberattacks
- Globally, cybersecurity attacks cost $190,000 per second (Cybersecurity Magazine)
- As the value of digital commerce in the metaverse grows in scope and scale—by some estimates projected to be over $800 billion by 2024—these types of attacks will grow in frequency and aggression (WeForum)
- Adults over 60 lost $650 million as victims of online crime in 2018 (Aspen Institute)
- Destructive attacks increased in cost by over $430,000 (IBM)
- The cost of a breach in the healthcare industry went up 42% since 2020. For the 12th year in a row, healthcare had the highest average data breach cost of any industry (IBM)
- For the 12th year in a row, the United States holds the title for the highest cost of a data breach, USD 5.09 million more than the global average (IBM)
- The average cost of cybercrime in the U.S. is 27.37 million US dollars (GetAstra)
- LockBit has brought in about $91 million in ransoms from U.S. victims since its first reported attack in the country in January 2020 (The Record)
- In 2021, according to Cybersecurity Ventures, cybercrime damages might reach $6 trillion—what would be equivalent to the GDP of the world’s third-largest economy (WeForum)
- Microsoft is quadrupling its cybersecurity investment to $20 billion over the next five years (CNBC)
- Global cybercrime costs will grow by 15% per year over the next five years, reaching $10.5 trillion USD annually by 2025, up from $3 trillion USD in 2015
- $3 billion worth of cryptocurrency was stolen in hacks till now (GetAstra)
- The FBI reported 847,346 cybersecurity complaints in 2021, with losses upwards of $6.9 billion (GetAstra)
- Global spending on security awareness training for employees (previously one of the most underspent cybersecurity budget items) is predicted to reach $10 billion by 2027 (Cybersecurity Ventures)
Time Cost
- Globally, those who experienced cybercrime in the past year spent an average of 6.7 hours resolving it, an estimated total of 2.7 billion hours lost (GetAstra)
- It took organizations with a remote workforce 58 days longer to identify and contain the breach than office-based organizations (CyberTalk)
- It takes 50% of small businesses more than 24 hours to recover from an attack (GetAstra)
- The share of breaches caused by ransomware grew 41% in the last year and took 49 days longer than average to identify and contain (IBM)
- In 2022, it took an average of 277 days—about 9 months—to identify and contain a breach (IBM)
Frequency of Cyberattacks
- The U.S. has seen a 400% increase in internet crime targeting adults over 60 over the past five years (Aspen Institute)
- An estimated 556 million people fall victim to cybercrime annually—12 people every second (Microsoft)
- There are 800,000 cyberattacks each year (GetAstra)
- Every 39 seconds there is a hacker attack (GetAstra)
- 300,000 new malware are created every day (GetAstra)
- The FBI reported 847,346 cybersecurity complaints in 2021, with losses upwards of $6.9 billion (GetAstra)
- It is estimated that an organization suffered a ransomware attack every 11 seconds in 2021, according to Cybersecurity Ventures, and it is expected there will be a new attack on a consumer or business every two seconds by 2031 (Cybersecurity Ventures)
- 54% of organizations experienced a cyberattack in the last 12 months, while 75% of respondents said they’ve experienced a significant increase in security incidents
Data Leak and Cyberattack Prevention
- For 83% of companies, it’s not whether a data breach will happen but when (IBM)
- 54% of businesses say cyberattacks are too advanced for their IT team to handle on their own (Sophos)
- 43% of businesses use disk encryption on endpoint devices (CyberTalk)
- 42% of businesses scan email and office apps for sensitive data (CyberTalk)
- 30% of businesses scan files for sensitive content (CyberTalk)
- 31% of organizations don’t use any sound methods to prevent business data from leaking (CyberTalk)
- Only 12% of organizations that allow corporate access from mobile devices use a mobile threat defense solution (CyberTalk)
- Organizations that had a fully deployed AI and automation program were able to identify and contain a breach 28 days faster than those that didn’t, saving $3.05 million in costs (IBM)
- Cyber insurance pricing in the United States rose by 96% in the third quarter of 2021 (WeForum)
Cybersecurity Job Outlook
- This field is projected to experience a 35% change in employment from 2021 to 2031 (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
- There are currently 663,434 cybersecurity job openings in the U.S. (Cyberseek)
- Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that women will hold 25% of cybersecurity jobs globally by the end of 2021
- The District of Columbia has the highest number of cybersecurity roles currently available: 5,652 (Comparitech)
- At $135,200 a year, California boasts the highest average annual salary for cybersecurity professionals and is 17.65% higher than the average information security analyst salary of $113,270 (Comparitech)
- In 2021, the median salary of information security analysts was $102,600 per year (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
