Imagine your personal data is just one of over 12 billion stolen accounts floating in the digital underworld, a stark reality underscored by a relentless barrage of cyber crime that saw over 880,000 complaints and $12.5 billion in losses reported to the FBI in 2023 alone.
Key Takeaways
- In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 880,418 cyber crime complaints with losses exceeding $12.5 billion
- Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams caused $2.9 billion in losses in 2023 per IC3
- Chainalysis reported $24.1 billion in crypto stolen via hacks in 2022
- Phishing was the most reported cyber crime in 2023 with 298,878 complaints to IC3
- Verizon's 2023 DBIR found 49% of breaches involved social engineering
- APWG Q4 2023 Phishing Activity Trends reported 951,015 unique phishing sites
- Ransomware complaints to IC3 rose to 2,825 in 2023 with $59.6 million reported losses
- Emsisoft reported over 2,000 ransomware victims in US healthcare in 2023
- Sophos 2023 State of Ransomware found 66% of orgs hit by ransomware
- IBM's 2023 Cost of a Data Breach Report averaged $4.45 million per breach
- Have I Been Pwned database has over 12 billion accounts breached as of 2024
- Ponemon/IBM 2023: Stolen credentials caused 16% of breaches costing $4.76M avg
- Statista: DDoS attacks hit 15.4M in 2023 globally
- Cloudflare 2023: Mitigated 21M DDoS attacks per second peak
- Akamai SOTA 2023: DDoS attacks up 500% in gaming sector
Cybercrime costs billions globally, with phishing and ransomware attacks soaring every year.
DDoS Attacks
- Statista: DDoS attacks hit 15.4M in 2023 globally
- Cloudflare 2023: Mitigated 21M DDoS attacks per second peak
- Akamai SOTA 2023: DDoS attacks up 500% in gaming sector
- Imperva 2023: 62% of internet traffic was DDoS bots
- Netscout 2023: 10.03 Tbps largest DDoS attack recorded
- Cloudflare Q1 2024: 16.8M DDoS attacks mitigated
- Akamai: Layer 7 DDoS up 46% in 2023
- Imperva: DDoS attacks every 20 seconds on avg in 2023
- Netscout: 7.9M DDoS attacks in H1 2023
- OVHcloud: 849 Mpps DDoS record in 2023
DDoS Attacks Interpretation
The internet's digital arteries are under constant, massive siege, with DDoS attacks now so frequent and powerful they've become a mundane yet terrifying background hum to online life.
Data Breaches
- IBM's 2023 Cost of a Data Breach Report averaged $4.45 million per breach
- Have I Been Pwned database has over 12 billion accounts breached as of 2024
- Ponemon/IBM 2023: Stolen credentials caused 16% of breaches costing $4.76M avg
- Hold Security: 2023 saw 1.2B credentials exposed in breaches
- Identity Theft Resource Center 2023: 3,205 breaches exposing 354M records
- IBM 2023: Avg breach lifecycle 277 days
- HIBP: LinkedIn breach 2021 exposed 700M user data
- Verizon: 83% of breaches involved external actors in 2023 DBIR
- ITRC: Education sector 24% of 2023 breaches
- IBM: Lost productivity cost $1.59M avg per breach 2023
- Verizon DBIR 2024 preview: Misc. errors 10% of breaches
- HIBP: MOVEit breach affected 62M individuals 2023
- ITRC: Retail 15% of data breaches in 2023
- IBM: Detection/analysis costs $1.58M avg per breach 2023
- Verizon: System intrusion 27% of breach patterns 2023
- HIBP: Twitter breach 200M emails 2023
- IBM: Cloud breaches cost $4.75M avg vs $4.35M on-prem 2023
- Verizon DBIR: Privilege misuse 5% of breaches 2023
- ITRC: Government 12% of breaches 2023
Data Breaches Interpretation
With over 12 billion accounts floating in the digital underworld and each corporate data breach costing nearly $4.5 million, it's clear that our collective password hygiene is not just a personal problem but a multi-billion-dollar industry for criminals.
Financial Losses
- In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 880,418 cyber crime complaints with losses exceeding $12.5 billion
- Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams caused $2.9 billion in losses in 2023 per IC3
- Chainalysis reported $24.1 billion in crypto stolen via hacks in 2022
- FBI IC3 2023: Investment fraud losses hit $4.7 billion from 69,000 complaints
- Statista: Global cybercrime costs projected $10.5T annually by 2025
- Chainalysis 2024: $3.8B illicit crypto transaction volume in 2023
- FBI: Cryptocurrency investment scams topped $4B losses in 2023
- Verizon DBIR 2023: Financial sector had 20% of breaches
- Chainalysis: North Korea stole $1B in crypto in 2022 alone
- IC3 2023: Elder fraud losses $3.4B from 101K complaints
- FBI IC3 2023: Tech support scams caused $862M losses
- Chainalysis 2023: Scam profits $4.2B in crypto
- IC3: Romance scams $1.3B losses from 19K complaints 2023
- Statista: Cybercrime victims worldwide 4.35B in 2023
- FBI: Confidence fraud $3.9B losses 2023
- Chainalysis: Hacking revenue $1.7B in 2023 crypto
- IC3 2023: Non-payment fraud $645M losses
- Statista: US cybercrime complaints 880K in 2023
- Chainalysis: DeFi hacks $1.8B losses 2023
- FBI IC3: Real estate fraud $446M losses 2023
Financial Losses Interpretation
In the digital gold rush of 2023, thieves are having a banner year, having skillfully diversified their portfolios to pilfer over $10 billion from the pockets of the hopeful, the lonely, and the busy, proving that while the methods are high-tech, the art of the con is timeless.
Phishing Attacks
- Phishing was the most reported cyber crime in 2023 with 298,878 complaints to IC3
- Verizon's 2023 DBIR found 49% of breaches involved social engineering
- APWG Q4 2023 Phishing Activity Trends reported 951,015 unique phishing sites
- Proofpoint's 2023 State of the Phish found 84% of orgs experienced phishing
- KnowBe4 2023 Phishing by Industry: Finance saw 1.8 clicks per user
- CrowdStrike 2024 Global Threat Report: Phishing up 558% in cloud envs
- Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2023: 300M daily phishing emails blocked
- Verizon DBIR 2023: 74% of breaches involved human element
- APWG 2023: Phishing attacks up 50% to over 5M sites detected
- IBM 2023: Phishing most common initial attack vector in 16% of breaches
- Proofpoint: 96% of orgs faced phishing in 2023
- APWG Q1 2024: 1.12M phishing reports received
- Microsoft: 40% rise in phishing kits in 2023
- KnowBe4: Avg phish-prone percentage 33.5% globally in 2023
- APWG: Credential phishing up 174% in Q3 2023
- Proofpoint: Mobile phishing attacks up 328% in 2023
- Microsoft: 2.3T login attempts blocked, many phishing-related 2023
- Google: 100M phishing sites blocked daily via Safe Browsing 2023
- KnowBe4: Healthcare phish-prone 37.6% in 2023 tests
- APWG Q2 2023: 806K phishing sites detected
- Proofpoint: Voice phishing (vishing) reports doubled 2023
- CrowdStrike: 47% increase in cloud intrusions via phishing 2023
- Microsoft: 65B password attacks blocked quarterly 2023
- KnowBe4: Education phish-prone 36.4% 2023
- APWG: Business email compromise phishing 20% of attacks 2023
- Proofpoint: SMS phishing (smishing) up 47% 2023
- Google Transparency: 2.5B unsafe sites blocked 2023
Phishing Attacks Interpretation
Despite the trillion-dollar cybersecurity industry's best efforts to build higher digital walls, humanity remains the persistently gullible, click-happy front door that phishing attackers just keep finding wide open.
Ransomware Incidents
- Ransomware complaints to IC3 rose to 2,825 in 2023 with $59.6 million reported losses
- Emsisoft reported over 2,000 ransomware victims in US healthcare in 2023
- Sophos 2023 State of Ransomware found 66% of orgs hit by ransomware
- Coveware Q4 2023 Ransomware Report: Avg ransom payment $1.74M
- CISA: 2023 reported 1,800+ ransomware attacks on critical infra
- Sophos: Ransomware recovery costs averaged $1.82M in 2023
- Emsisoft: 2023 ransomware hit 128 countries with 2,384 victims
- Coveware 2023: LockBit responsible for 25% of ransomware attacks
- Sophos: 59% of ransomware victims paid in 2023
- Emsisoft: US healthcare ransomware attacks doubled to 249 in 2023
- Sophos: Avg downtime from ransomware 24 days in 2023
- Coveware: Ransom demands averaged $2M in Q4 2023
- Emsisoft: BlackCat/ALPHV extorted $147M before shutdown 2023-24
- Sophos: 75% of orgs encrypt backups, down from prior year 2023
- Coveware: Avg negotiation time 6 days for ransomware 2023
- Emsisoft: 2023 saw 493 ransomware groups active
- Sophos: Manufacturing hit hardest by ransomware 32% 2023
- Coveware: CL0P exploited MOVEit for $100M+ 2023
- Emsisoft: Ransomware victims paid $1.1B total 2023 estimate
- Sophos: 23% of ransomware from initial access brokers 2023
Ransomware Incidents Interpretation
If you're still thinking of ransomware as a nuisance, the data suggests it's now a multi-billion-dollar industry with better operational metrics than most startups, and your data is its preferred currency.
Sources & References
- Reference 1IC3ic3.govVisit source
- Reference 2VERIZONverizon.comVisit source
- Reference 3IBMibm.comVisit source
- Reference 4CHAINALYSISchainalysis.comVisit source
- Reference 5DOCSdocs.apwg.orgVisit source
- Reference 6PROOFPOINTproofpoint.comVisit source
- Reference 7EMSISOFTemsisoft.comVisit source
- Reference 8SOPHOSsophos.comVisit source
- Reference 9HAVEIBEENPWNEDhaveibeenpwned.comVisit source
- Reference 10KNOWBE4knowbe4.comVisit source
- Reference 11CROWDSTRIKEcrowdstrike.comVisit source
- Reference 12COVEWAREcoveware.comVisit source
- Reference 13MICROSOFTmicrosoft.comVisit source
- Reference 14STATISTAstatista.comVisit source
- Reference 15HOLDSECURITYholdsecurity.comVisit source
- Reference 16CISAcisa.govVisit source
- Reference 17APWGapwg.orgVisit source
- Reference 18IDTHEFTCENTERidtheftcenter.orgVisit source
- Reference 19BLOGblog.cloudflare.comVisit source
- Reference 20AKAMAIakamai.comVisit source
- Reference 21IMPERVAimperva.comVisit source
- Reference 22NETSCOUTnetscout.comVisit source
- Reference 23TRANSPARENCYREPORTtransparencyreport.google.comVisit source
- Reference 24OVHCLOUDovhcloud.comVisit source
