Cyber Security Statistics, Trends and Data

Cybersecurity is no small deal these days, and anyone with even a remote understanding of digital security can tell you that. As digital devices connected to the internet become popular, threat actors also change how they target vulnerable demographics. We are talking about the emergence of new threats and the increasing impact of existing threats. At this juncture, you may want to keep track of some cybersecurity statistics and trends. We have some in this article.

Cyber Security Fast Facts

Let’s take a quick look at some cyber security facts:

• The number of cybercrimes across the world has grown six times following COVID-19. This 600% hike has been due to the increasing reliance on remote work and online platforms, including payment.
• Ransomware attacks have also increased in the past decade, with statistics indicating that one attack occurs every 11 seconds.
• Cyberattacks have also started targeting small businesses instead of larger enterprises. These smaller businesses have comparatively weaker security systems, making them vulnerable. According to some recent surveys, 43% of cyberattacks now target small-to-medium businesses.

• Cybersecurity threats cost the industry a lot of money. By 2025, the total amount lost to digital threats will become over $10.5 trillion.
• Despite the increasing level of digital threats, people still rely on poor passwords, which are causing 81% of data breaches and exploits.
• Cyber security threats still rely on phishing, which is used to jump-start an attack. It is reported that 90% of successful cyber attacks are derived from phishing emails.
• While individual cases broadly vary, an entity takes around 287 days to identify a data breach and take reparative measures to contain the attack.
• Like other industries, cyber security also looks forward to the implementation of Artificial Intelligence. AI is expected to reduce the breach detection time by 12%, which ensures better security for end-users as well as enterprise customers.
• In spite of rising cyber security threats, only 50% of companies worldwide rely on encryption to store sensitive data, including customer data. This means that half of the companies you share data with may be storing your information in plain text.
• By 2025, companies globally would have spent close to $200 billion to improve security features.
• It is reported that a data breach in 2023 had an average cost of $4.45 million. This number has grown in the past year.
• Even though cyber security attacks are common across industries, they primarily target businesses and service providers from the healthcare industry.
• Security research companies across the world detect close to 560,000 new malware threats every single day. Many of these threats are new in terms of MO and target demographics.
• The world of cybercrime has become a haven for threat actors, considering they are more profitable than the illegal drug trade worldwide.
• Quantum computing, which is considered the future, can affect the security that current encryption technologies offer, opening a new world of threats in the coming ten years.
• As these quick facts indicate, it’s high time for individuals and enterprise customers to up the game of privacy and security. Given that threat actors now target small and medium businesses instead of dedicating their entire effort to enterprises, they should also take preventive measures, starting with encryption.

Cyber Security Threats

Now, let’s dig a little deeper into cyber security threats. Before that, I want to provide you with a basic idea about these threats and their differences.

Malware Threats

• Malware broadly refers to any piece of software that can harm the data on a computer. However, it remains a reductive definition since malware attacks now target servers and computer networks as well.
• Email messages remain the most prominent channel through which malware threats find them on a computer network or server.
• Compared to 2021, 2022 had a 125% increase in malware detection on a global scale.

• Ransomware, viruses, Trojan horses, and spyware are some popular types of malware. These threats may target individual systems or enterprise networks.
• Over half a million new malware threats surface on the web every single day. Only a tiny percentage of these threats are detected on the first day.

Phishing Threats

• Phishing cybersecurity threats involve impersonating someone through email messages. Such attacks target a larger group, and they receive emails that look like they are from a trusted source. However, these websites are fabricated to collect sensitive data from the customer.
• Alternatively, phishing attacks may install some sort of malware on the targeted devices. People tend to download these problematic files because they seem to originate from a trusted site.
• Even though other sources like instant messages and SMSs are used, 9 out of 10 phishing attacks use a phishing email.
• 2022 marked a 61% increase in the number of phishing attacks compared to the previous years.
• Records indicate that over 1.5 million phishing web pages are created every month. Conscious of this change, anti-malware protection suites now pack additional features for anti-phishing protection.
• Phishing threat actors have also started targeting multiple industries, namely financial services and e-commerce.
• Data threats caused by phishing are expected to have an average cost of $4.65 million, rendering the attacks a massive problem for businesses in sectors like financial sectors.
• The 2023 Threat Report from Sophos has indicated that phishing attacks are used as an anchor for many ransomware attacks, influencing vulnerable demographics to download the ransomware.
• Compared to the past five years, 2023 saw an 85% increase in the number of phishing attacks focusing on mobile devices.

• Smishing is a term used to denote phishing attacks that make use of SMS messages as a channel for trapping users.

Ransomware Threats

• Ransomware attacks use malware to encrypt important files on the targeted devices. Then, targets are asked to pay a ransom to remove the encryption and regain access to data.
• Ransomware attacks have increased so much in the past decade that hundreds of devices would have been affected by the time you finish reading this article.
• According to data from 2023, a ransomware attack asks the target to pay an amount of $812,360 on average. This number can travel upward in most cases.
• However, even when victims pay these ransom amounts, the chances of regaining data access are not high. It is reported that only 45% of payments have resulted in partial/full data access.
• Even then, companies tend to pay these ransom amounts. In 2023, a large insurance company ended up paying a $40 million ransom to relieve the attack.
• Like legitimate software solutions, ransomware attacks are also now available as a service. These are used for corporate espionage, and intermediaries receive millions of dollars in commissions.
• In 2023, 70% of ransomware attacks had targeted companies and individuals in North America and Europe, owing to their potential to result in ransom payments.

• While low in number, business ventures in Asia and Latin America have also witnessed more of these attacks in the past five years.
• Statistics also indicate that more companies are now reporting ransomware attacks, while the chance of getting the data/ransom amount back is in question.
• Ransomware threats also exploit multiple vulnerabilities in systems and networks. Thus, most of these attacks complete the encryption process before they can be detected.

DDoS Threats

• DDoS refers to Denial of Service or Distributed Denial of Service. This form of cyberthreat can render web services unreachable by bombarding them with internet traffic.
• Even though companies have taken up security measures, the number of DDoS threats increased by 55% in 2022.
• Ten million DDoS attacks were reported in 2023 alone. However, the actual number may be high, as is the case of other cybercrimes.
• While the frequency of DDoS attacks has increased, the most significant DDoS attack is the one from 2023. In this attack, there was a data flow of 3.47 Terabits per second, which rendered the services of a significant financial institution inactive.
• DDoS attacks are used by cyber threat actors to target industries like telecom, IT services, finance, and gaming. In 2023, DDoS attacks targeting the gaming industry rose by 25%.

• DDoS attackers gain money through extorsion, where the service provider is asked for a ransom to stop the DDoS attack. As a result, anti-DDoS security services have become very popular.
• However, internet activism and corporate espionage are also common reasons behind DDoS attacks. In particular, competitors in the e-commerce sector use DDoS attacks to benefit from another site’s downtime.
• While the average duration of a DDoS attack is expected to be 15 minutes, many have lasted for up to 4 hours, contributing to severe damage.
• Like other cyber security threats, DDoS attacks also target entities in North America and Europe, but the numbers are rising in Asia-Pacific.
• DDoS tools and DDoS-for-hire services are now widely available, making it easy for businesses to target their competitors.

Zero-day Exploits

• Zero-day exploits are newly found vulnerabilities in software or a piece of code. Attackers may use these vulnerabilities to set up data breaches and attacks.
• These attacks happen before the developer has the time to detect the vulnerability and fix the issue. As mentioned earlier, this detection process may take up to a year.
• In 2022, there was a year-to-year increase of 50% in the number of zero-day exploit attacks.
• On average, a zero-day exploit attack may cause a loss of anywhere between $500,000 and $1 million.
• These attacks are the most difficult to defend since the attackers notice the vulnerability before the development team does.

• Web browsers are the biggest targets of zero-day attacks since 40% of zero-day attacks globally focus on issues with a web browser or its rendering engine.
• In the second position, we have Operating Systems, which are targeted by 25% of zero-day attacks. These attacks happen after recent upgrades or attacks.
• Only 15% of zero-day exploit attacks focus on third-party software. In particular, products from Java and Adobe have been frequent targets.
• Government and defense agencies face the majority of zero-day exploit attacks, with finance services and the healthcare sector in the second and third positions, respectively.
• Cybercriminal groups are the most responsible for zero-day exploits.

SQL Injection Threats

• SQL injection attacks are also becoming very problematic in the cybercrime security sector. In 2023, 65% of organizations globally reported that they have come across at least one SQL injection attempt.
• According to security statistics from 2023, 20% of data breaches happening across the globe were caused by an SQL injection attack.
• The cost of these breaches can go as high as $3.9 million, which includes other fees as well.
• SQL injection attacks target financial services, e-commerce companies, and the healthcare sector.
• 30% of all attacks targeted financial services, with another 25% attacking the e-commerce sector and another 15% attacking healthcare.

• Most of these attacks target companies and service providers located in North America and Europe, contributing to 70% of SQL injection attacks.
• On the other hand, Asia-Pacific markets become a rising space, where 35% of attacks are happening.
• The average time a company needs to detect an SQL injection attack and take the necessary measures is six days.
• Compared to other types of threats, SQL injection attacks offer greater mitigation success thanks to the effective use of firewalls and other security measures.
• SQL injection attacks are now also targeting cloud-based databases and applications as they are becoming popular. As a result, cloud service providers are also taking proactive measures to prevent such attacks.

Evolving Nature of Cyber Threats:

Here are some insights on the evolving nature of cyber threats and their deployment.

• The number of cyber threats across the globe has increased by a whopping 38% between 2022 and 2023.

• The number of cyber threats discovered every day often crosses half a million, meaning the extent to which these threats are being developed.
• There is an increasing use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to execute cyber security attacks that are not easy to defend.
• For instance, AI is used to make phishing attempts more effective and convincing so that it can draw in more victims.
• Cyberthreats are now targeting Internet of Things infrastructure and cloud-based services, which are not as ready as legacy digital infrastructure in terms of security.
• The number of zero-day exploits is also increasing, making it difficult for development and security teams to mitigate the issues.
• Law enforcement agencies from across the globe suggest that marketplaces that facilitate cybercrimes are increasing every day.
• There are a number of cybercrime-as-service products that people can purchase and use for purposes such as corporate espionage.
• Because of these changes in the security sector, experts are now moving towards zero-trust adoption, which aims to verify all requests towards a network.
• In addition, analytics is also being used to understand how and when these threats emerge and make their plan.

AI in Cyber Security

• Like other industries, cyber security also embraces artificial intelligence. But, people on different sides of the industry use it for various needs.
• Like other technology breakthroughs, AI has also become a double-edged sword in terms of security concerns.
• On the one hand, AI has been helping security experts to recognize potential patterns of security threats better and take preventive measures, such as implanting knowledge-based authentication to better protect user accounts.
• On the other hand, AI has been helping attackers to sound more genuine in campaigns such as phishing attacks. This way, AI helps attackers increase the number of victims with minimal effort.
• When it comes to the use of AI in defense, it has been effective in threat detection, response time, and the removal of false positives.
• It has also been used in threat intelligence, which refers to the verification of threat data and the trial and error process.
• The use of AI has also been effective in areas such as fraud detection and prevention. The AI capabilities can be used to monitor transactions and take necessary steps to isolate problematic ones and follow up with the next steps.
• Endpoint security is also an area where AI is expected to shine in the upcoming years because of its ability to analyze the signs and reach at valuable conclusions.
• However, there are some challenges that AI implementation in the world of security has to address. For instance, the cost of implementation remains a concern, and organizations are still looking for people who are trained in AI-powered systems and security environments.
• At the same time, the evolving nature of AI has made it a problematic concern for security experts because AI technology is helping offensive protectors as well.
• Regardless of these issues, it is projected that 3 out of 4 large enterprise businesses will rely on AI-powered cybersecurity intelligence by the end of 2025.

• Considering the changing targets of cyber security attacks, small and medium businesses will also go for these security services soon.
• AI-augmented human intelligence is also a projected trend in the security sector. It refers to the use of AI analytics overseen by human experts so that better decisions can be made.
• Compliance is another area where AI would shine in the cybersecurity sector. AI tools can better tell experts whether end-point and server environments comply with regulations.
• Like elsewhere, experts in the security sectors are also concerned about the privacy issues that the use of AI may bring about.
• Despite these challenges, the role of AI in security predictive analysis cannot be understated.

The Bottom Line

As you can see, the world of Cyber Security is evolving like ever before. As AI-based technologies make a mark on the entire system, defensive and offensive teams make use of it. More importantly, the booming era of the quantum community is also expected to affect how we deal with security threats targeting individuals, small businesses, and multi-billion-dollar enterprises. While we cannot stop these threats in a single step, it makes sense to keep ourselves aware of the breadth of these threats and how to navigate them.