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Top 5 cybercrime statistics in the last year
April 2022 by Edward G., ATLASVPN
In this article, Atlas VPN will shine a light on the most notable cybercrime statistics from the past year in regard to damages. Feel free to click on any of the sources to head over to an article that goes in-depth about that statistic.
Blockchain hackers stole nearly $1.3 billion in Q1 2022 (Source)
Thieves did not take a break despite the drop in bitcoin prices at the beginning of the year. Hackers and scammers made millions of dollars from attacks on numerous crypto projects and ecosystems.
During the first quarter of 2022, hackers stole over $1.3 billion in 78 hacking events. The majority of losses resulted from hacks on the Ethereum and Solana ecosystems, with over $1 billion in damages.
Over $12 billion in crypto stolen in the past decade (Source)
The crypto industry’s technology has improved dramatically since the launch of Bitcoin in 2009. Despite this, many crypto businesses have failed to develop effective security mechanisms that would prevent hackers from profiting at the expense of their victims by exploiting loopholes.
In the last 11 years, more than $12 billion in cryptocurrency has been stolen. Decentralized Finance (DeFi)-related hacks continue to rise, as up to 40% of funds were stolen through fake exchanges.
Romance scams cost Americans almost $350 million in 2021 (Source)
The pandemic was a delight for impersonators since it gave them a real reason to avoid meeting up in person. As a result, scammers were able to carry out romantic scams on a far wider scale than before.
According to the findings, heartbroken victims lost $343 million in the first three quarters of 2021. Perhaps the most surprising discovery is that in 2020 and 2021, people aged 60 to 69 lost substantially more money than any other age group.
US military personnel lost over $822 million to scams since 2017 (Source)
Between 2017 and June 30, 2021, US military personnel lost $822.1 million to various forms of digital crime. The Federal Trade Commission received more than 836,374 allegations of fraud, identity theft, and other consumer complaints from military people.
The US military is divided into three groups by the Federal Trade Commission. The first group includes reports from reservists and family members. Complaints from active-duty troops make up the second group. Reports from veterans and military retirees make up the third category.
The first group, reservists and military families, was behind the lion’s share of the losses, totaling $484.4 million.
Americans lost a record $3.5bn to cybercrime in 2021 (Source)
Cybercrime is wreaking havoc across the United States, causing unprecedented losses. Cybercriminals are taking advantage of the buzz surrounding cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens, and the metaverse to dupe people into investing in fraudulent projects that vanish after raising a large sum of money.
Using publicly available data, researchers discovered that in the first three quarters of 2021, US citizens had already lost $3.49 billion to cybercrime. You won’t need a calculator to figure out that the damages are $12.78 million each day.
Cybercrime landscape
Finally, for those readers who are interested in seeing a broader view of the current cybercrime landscape, we have prepared a more extensive page, which contains 60 Worrying Cybercrime Statistics.
