Cybercrime statistics
As our lives become increasingly digital, the risk of falling victim online continues to rise each year. Although cybercrimes are dangerous, they are rarely random acts. Beyond careless online behavior, many people become victims because their personal data is leaked by companies and institutions worldwide. These breaches provide malicious actors with the information they need to launch phishing attacks, commit fraud, and execute other scams.
Understanding the full scope of online crimes is essential. Below, we present updated 2023 cybercrime data, including information on annual data breaches, crime density, impacts, costs, and the most commonly targeted age groups.
Countries were divided into 6 groups according to their breach density, measured by the number of breached email accounts per 1,000 internet users. The data breach map does not include countries with populations below 1 million or internet penetration rates under 10%.
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Our analysis of 2023 data breach statistics shows that 96% of countries have breach densities lower than the global average of 131 leaked email accounts per 1,000 internet users. This highlights how hackers target some countries more than others.
One country that stands out significantly is the US, with over 11 times more leaked email accounts than the global average. To put this into perspective, there was more than one breach per internet user in the US in 2023.
In general, hackers tend to target developed countries more frequently:
- On a continental level, North America experiences the highest breach rates, with nearly every American internet user affected by a breach in 2023 — over 7 times higher than the global average.
- Europe ranks second, with 1 in 6 internet users experiencing a breach.
- Africa has the lowest breach rates with only 6 leaked email accounts per 1,000 internet users, followed closely by Asia, which has 13.
This graph illustrates the ten countries with the highest cybercrime density, defined as the number of cybercrime victims per 1 million internet users. The ranking includes only those countries that provided data in both the 2023 and 2022 FBI reports.
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For the fourth consecutive year this decade, the UK ranks highest in cybercrime density with 4,419 victims per 1 million internet users. Notably, the top four countries remain unchanged from the previous year, with the US, Canada, and Australia rounding up the list. The Philippines reported the highest increase among the top 10 (60%). In contrast, three countries saw decreases, with Australia experiencing the most significant drop of 37%.
There is a significant disparity in the types of cybercrimes that commonly affect individuals. For instance, phishing or spoofing remains the most prevalent cybercrime, with nearly 300,000 victims reported in 2023. In fact, every second person who fell victim to an online crime was targeted by a phishing or spoofing attack.
However, the financial impact of each type of cybercrime varies greatly. On average, phishing or spoofing victims lost the least amount of money, with losses of approximately $63 per victim. In contrast, those who fell victim to investment fraud suffered the highest average losses, exceeding $115,000 in 2023.
Additionally, the Internet Crime Report from last year also highlighted SIM-swapping fraud. In 2023, 1,075 victims reported being targeted, resulting in total financial losses of $48.8 million. This averages over $45,000 in losses per victim, making it the second-highest average on the list per victim.
Cybercrime is continuously on the rise. Since 2001, the number of online crime victims has increased nearly 17-fold, from 6 to 101 victims every hour, while financial losses have surged over 690 times, rising from $2,055 to more than $1.4 million lost per hour. In total, cybercrime has affected at least 8,183,685 victims, resulting in $48.9 billion in losses over the 23-year period.
Cybercrime rates also tend to align with global events:
- In 2009, the year following the Great Recession, financial losses from cybercrime dramatically increased by 115%, rising from $260 million in 2008 to $560 million in 2009.
- In 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of cybercrime victims grew by 69% compared to 2019, increasing from over 467,000 to nearly 792,000 victims yearly. This marked the highest growth in cybercrime victims recorded since 2001.
- In 2022, as prices soared and inflation peaked in many parts of the world, cybercrime financial losses reached one of the highest levels ever recorded, totaling $10.3 billion — nearly a 50% increase from the $6.9 billion reported in 2021. The $3.4 billion rise in yearly losses was recorded as the most significant of this century.
Historically, individuals under 20 years old have been the most resilient to cybercrimes, reporting the fewest victims each year since 2015, with 10,435 victims in that period. However, this age group experienced the highest yearly increase in cybercrime victims, rising over 15% from 15,782 in 2022 to 18,174 in 2023.
In contrast, seniors (those over 60) have generally been the most vulnerable to cybercrime. In 2023, this group reported the second-highest yearly increase in victims, with a rise of over 14%, despite a consistent decline since the peak in 2020. Notably, this marked the second time since 2015 that the number of victims exceeded 100,000 in a single year.
A similar trend is observed for the 20 to 29 age group. Despite a decline since the peak in 2020, the number of cybercrime victims in this group began to rise again, with an approximately 8% increase in 2023.