About four decades ago, the internet was just a concept that most people didn’t believe in, and today it has become a part of our daily life. As exciting and convenient as it sounds, the internet is a dangerous place. This is where modern crimes are happening. Cybercrime has become the most dreaded topic these days. One can’t deny it that it isn’t happening nor one can overlook its importance. While more and more resources are being deployed to enhance internet security, the nature of the industry still has a very long way to go. One of the cybersecurity facts suggests that every 39 seconds, an internet user is getting hacked. So, you can estimate how important cybersecurity is for our community.
With that said, it is critical for us to outline what the current cybersecurity and information technology industry looks like. In order to give you a better idea of the subject matter, we are going to present you with the most alarming cybersecurity facts and figures that every internet user must know.
Table of Contents
Social Media is a Hacker’s Most Preferred Target
There are over 3.4 billion active social media users across the globe. This is the main reason why the majority of cyber-attacks happen on social media platforms. The following are the most popular types of cyber-attacks directed at social media:
- Social spam is unsolicited content that appears on websites and social networks with user-generated content such as chats, comments, etc. It appears in numerous forms, including fake friends, fraudulent reviews, malicious links, hate speech, etc.
- Phishing is an attempt to obtain sensitive information such as passwords, usernames, bank details, etc. by camouflaging under a trustworthy entity such as Tweet, Facebook message, and other websites.
- Link-jacking is a practice used by hackers that redirects a user’s website link to a malware-infested website that hide different types of viruses.
- Like-jacking is the practice where hackers post fake social media ‘like’ buttons to websites. When users click these ‘like’ buttons, they are actually downloading malware.
Social media cybersecurity facts say that more than 600,000 Facebook accounts are hacked every single day and one in ten social media users is a victim of a cyber-attack.
MyDoom is the Most Expensive Computer Virus of all Times
First spotted in 2004, MyDoom became the fastest spreading email virus ever. It is considered the most costly virus in cybersecurity history causing a whopping $38.5 billion in financial damage! While its creator was never discovered, it is believed that the virus originated from Russia.
99% of Computer Systems are Vulnerable to Exploit Kits
One of the most surprising cybersecurity facts that you will be stunned to hear is that 99% of computer users across the globe are defenseless against software vulnerabilities. Computer programs like Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, or Oracle Java are present in the majority of the computer systems. These programs are all the time susceptible to software vulnerabilities. All it takes is your one click on a malicious ad to give the attacker complete access to your system.
Adobe Flash, for example, has several vulnerabilities. Hackers use these vulnerabilities to deploy ransomware to your computer.
Largest Data Breaches Cybersecurity Facts
According to the latest cybersecurity facts provided by various organizations:
- On average, hackers attack 2244 times in a day
- Since 2014, security breaches have increased by 67%
- According to IBM, the average time taken to identify a breach this year was 206 days
- As of 2019, $3.92 million is the average cost of a data breach
- In 2018, clothing and apparel brand Under Armor’s “My Fitness Pal” app was hacked that affected over 150 million users
- Information of over 57 million Uber riders and drivers were stolen, which Uber tried to recover by trying paying off the hackers to delete the data
- One of the biggest security breaches happened in 2016 when over 3 billion Yahoo accounts were hacked
You will be surprised to know the cybersecurity facts that loom around corporates and employees. According to reports, about 59% of employees steal exclusive company data when they are fired or leave the company. Companies and organizations are vulnerable to inside jobs. Different types of insider threats include:
- Careless insiders are those who accidentally modify or delete critical information. During the Amazon S3 issue, it was reported that the data of over 150,000 Americans were leaked
- Exploited insiders are those who are ‘deceived’ or ‘tricked’ into providing passwords or data by external parties
- Malicious insiders are those who have the potential to cause substantial damage to the organization due to their level of access. They are the least frequent but the attacks from malicious insiders are most costly
Cybersecurity Facts that are the Most Impactful Right Now
When it comes to cybersecurity, there are many critical aspects that must be adhered to. The following cybersecurity facts will give you a general idea of the overall impact of internet crime.
- As per Cybersecurity Media, the estimated number of passwords used by machines and humans will reach 300 billion by 2020
- The most notorious email attachments types are .dot and .doc, which makes up to 37% followed by .exe at 19.5%
- Although overall ransomware attacks are down by 52%, enterprise attacks are up by 12%
- According to Verizon, of all the breaches occurred globally, 52% featured hacking, 33% involved social engineering or phishing, and 28% featured malware. Moreover, 71% of breaches were motivated by monetary factors while 25% were espionage-related. In the first half of 2019, these data breaches exposed over 4.1 billion records
- On average, only 5% of corporates’ files are suitably secured
- The majority of the business leaders (68%) feel their internet security risks are increasing day by day as in 2018, 62% of businesses experienced social engineering and phishing attacks
Considering these cybersecurity facts, global spending on internet security is estimated to reach $133.7 billion by the end of 2022.
Conclusion
These are the most prominent cyber security facts and figures that the world needs to know. You are always advised to follow security best practices in order to ensure that everything related to you on the internet is safe and secure.