When it comes to IT, cybersecurity has one of the most significant budgets. Why’s this? It has become an issue that eats deep into the very foundation of a business, crashing the party and costing millions and even billions of dollars in the process.
Let’s look at some cyber attack statistics:
300,000 thousand new pieces of malware are created daily. (Source: Web Arx Security) Yes, you read that right! Thousands of new malware are being created daily, ranging from viruses, adware, Trojans, keyloggers, etc., with one sole aim - to steal people’s data. Luckily, we’ve ranked the best antivirus solutions to keep you safe from all this nasty malware.
As of 2022, over 60% of financial service companies have 1000+ sensitive files accessible to all employees. (Source: Varonis) Moreover, about 60% of companies in the field have 500+ passwords that never expire. With insiders being a significant risk factor, such businesses are more vulnerable to cyber attacks and data breaches.
Zip and .exe are among the most popular malicious email attachment extensions. (Source: NordVPN) Cyber attack stats for 2022 show that opening emails containing file extensions like .iso, .exe, .zip, .dmg, .rar should be avoided. Zip. and jar. files can easily bypass the anti-malware security of most email providers, so be on the lookout for them. Microsoft Office files could also pose a threat. Since most people are used to extensions like .ppt, .doc, and .xls, they’re easy to overlook.
The average cost of a data breach in 2022 was over $3.80 million. (Source: Cybercrime Magazine) 2022 data breach report from IBM shows that companies spent up to $3.80 million per data breach in 2022.
Uber reportedly lost the information of 57 million riders and drivers after a data breach in 2016. (Source: Tech Crunch) The Uber data breach occurred in 2016 with more than 600,000 drivers having their license numbers and names exposed to hackers. According to cyber attack statistics, this attack represents one of the most significant data breaches in recent times. What’s more, Uber did pay off its hackers $100,000 to delete the stolen data. However, word came out about a year later after the attempt proved unsuccessful. Following this, Uber had to pay a sum of $148 million to settle a nationwide investigation into the data breach.
Quite fascinating, right? But that’s not all - if you are interested in more curious facts about the ride-hailing company, you can check out our Uber statistics list.
Friendfinder’s website lost 412 million user accounts after being hacked. (Source: Wall Street Journal) Friendfinder is the parent company of a few other online dating websites such as AdultFriendFinder, Cams.com, Penthouse, Stripshow, and iCams.com. In 2016, Friendfinder was hacked, leading to the loss of millions of accounts containing the personal details of users. Cyberattacks statistics have it that Cams.com had the worst hit, with over 62 million accounts exposed. Penthouse.com, in its own case, lost more than 7 million accounts.
Over 550 US healthcare organizations experienced data breaches in 2022. (Source: Health Hit Security) Statistics on hospitals and cyberattacks have shown that financial institutions aren’t the only ones facing data breach issues. History has shown that the healthcare sector is among the most targeted. In 2022, up to 550 US healthcare organizations experienced data breaches. These cyber attacks affected over 40 million individuals as patients’ private information was stolen.
About 14.5 billion email spam campaigns accounted for over 45% of the email traffic. (Source: Statista) In 2022, up to 45% of all emails sent out were spam. Of these, a good number were malicious, while the rest were marketing emails. During that time, the largest number of unsolicited spam emails came from Russia. Up to 24.7% of the global spam volume originated from there.
The average life cycle of a data breach is about 11 months. (Source: Cyber Observer) 314 days is the total time it takes from the breach to the containment of a successful cyber attack. It takes an average of 7 months to identify a breach, and another 4 months to contain such a breach. The malicious programs deployed by successful hackers are stealthy, automatic, and can successfully disguise themselves as non-malicious files in case of a routine security check-up.
Ransomware is the third most used form of cyber attack in 2022. (Source: Panda Security) Up to 10% of data breaches in 2022 were ransomware-related. This made it the third most used cyber attack method. There were 304.7 million ransomware attacks in the first half of 2022 alone. This high volume is expected to continue into 2022.
Email is responsible for 91% of all cyber attacks. (Source: Deloitte) According to cyber attacks statistics, email remains one of the most popular and successful means that hackers use in distributing malware to their prospective victims. When a target opens the attached file or clicks on the malicious link following an email, a type of malware is executed. It either steals user information or disrupts company operation, depending on what it was programmed to achieve.
How Many Cyber Attacks Happen per Day Globally?
Before you are done with this post, someone somewhere would have successfully been hacked.
Yes, you read that right!
Keep reading to find out statistics on how many cyber attacks happen per day on average.
Globally, 30,000 websites are hacked daily. (Source: Web Arx Security) Financial, healthcare, and retail organizations are all prime targets to hackers daily. When cybercriminals can’t get through the cybersecurity infrastructure of an organization, they can try to gain access to your website. Some of the ways they can achieve this include software vulnerability, access control, and third-party integrations like extensions. For content management system platforms like WordPress, which host over 35% of all websites on the internet, 98% of its vulnerabilities come from plugins. That’s why there are also tons of security plugins to protect the vulnerable ones.
Every 39 seconds, there is a new attack somewhere on the Web. (Source: University of Maryland) That is about 2,244 attacks that happen on the internet daily! That’s how many cyber attacks happen per day. We saw earlier how hackers are creating hundreds of thousands of new malware daily. They are not created to sit idle; they are to be deployed onto the web and penetrate vulnerabilities within specific targets. However, it is also essential to take note that an attack does not necessarily mean a breach. A cyber attack can be successful or unsuccessful, depending on the cybersecurity measure put in place by a target.
Hackers breached almost 4 million records in March 2022. (Source: IT Governance) As of March 2022, there were 88 publicly disclosed cybersecurity cases. This resulted in 3,987,593 breached records. For the entire first quarter of 2022, a total of 75,099,482 records were breached.
More than ½ the organizations with IoT devices have no security measures in place. (Source: IoT World) According to remote cyber attacks statistics, eight in 10 corporate networks utilize internet of things devices. Shockingly, only about 50% of them have the proper infrastructure to protect themselves from hacking. In fact, most of them still use the default password. That poses a massive risk, as data breaches could happen any minute.
An average of around 24,000 malicious mobile apps are blocked daily on various mobile app stores. (Source: Symantec) With over 4.78 billion of the world’s population now mobile phone owners, it is expected that the attention of hackers will shift to mobile phone users. Most malicious mobile apps fall under these four categories - spyware, Trojans, phishing sites, and hidden processes.
In 2022, businesses around the globe face a ransomware attack every 11 seconds. (Source: Dataprot) Statistics on how many cyber attacks happen per day inform us that in 2022, businesses fall victim to ransomware attacks every 11 seconds. This marks a 20% increase from 2019.
23,000 DDoS attacks are happening somewhere on the internet every 24 hours. (Source: Net Scout) A distributed denial of service attack, also known as a DDoS attack, uses multiple systems to flood a particular server with irrelevant requests. This leads to a point when the server in question is unable to process legitimate requests from genuine users. It is simply an attempt by hackers to disrupt the day-to-day operation of a business. The motive behind most DDoS attacks is to obtain ransom from victims. Reports have it that 679,000 DDoS attacks occur monthly, which results in a total of 16 DDoS attacks every minute.
There are 65,000 attempts to hack small-medium-sized businesses in the UK daily. (Source: Hiscox) Statistics on how many cyber attacks per day in the UK report that the country has one of the lowest costs of data breaches compared to the world’s average. Also, out of all cyber attacks attempts made daily, 4,500 of them are always successful. The average cost of a data breach in the UK is $3.8 million, lower than the world’s average of $3.92 million. That said, if you live or operate a business in the UK, you might want to consider getting a better AV solution.
64% of companies worldwide have experienced at least one form of cyber attack in the past year. (Source: Cybint Solutions) There are countless reasons why hackers would want to attack a business. Stealing business financial details, customer financial details, espionage, etc., are among the top reasons hackers attack online businesses. Some of the most popular forms of cyberattacks mostly utilized by these cyber attackers are; phishing, malware, man-in-the-middle, denial of service, and more attacks.
Industries and Businesses Cyber Attack Statistics
Though individuals and businesses are both prime targets of cyber attacks, the frequency of attacks on businesses (especially small ones) far outweighs that of individuals. Here, we take a look at some of the industry statistics on cyber attack on small businesses worldwide:
In 2022, 43% of cyberattacks target small businesses. (Source: Forbes) According to Forbes, only 14% of these companies have proper defenses. And 83% aren’t financially prepared to recover from such attacks.
IoT devices suffer approximately 5,200 attacks per month. (Source: Forbes) That’s largely due to IoT devices still being in their infancy stage – thus lacking the necessary level of security to deter cyber attacks.
63% of all organizational internal data breach is a result of compromised usernames and passwords. (Source: ID Agent) In the journey of online security, deploying a strong password system is your first line of defense against cyber attackers, irrespective of what device you are trying to protect. cyberattacks statistics reveal that the lack of employee cybersecurity training causes workers to use weak and predictable passwords such as “12345”, “QWERTY,” etc.
In its research, Microsoft found that 73% of people online use duplicate passwords across various platforms, thereby leaving themselves exposed to a possible data breach.
That’s why you should consider creating a strong password, or better yet - use a password manager.
74% of organizations worldwide claim they are susceptible to insider threats. (Source: Bitglass) We pay so much attention to threats posed by external hackers, forgetting that insider threats are as dangerous to us as those we receive from outside sources. Statistics on malicious cyberattacks revealed that insider threats caused 60 % of all data breaches for the year.
Insider threats can come from malicious/careless workers, inside agents, third-party users/contractors, and even disgruntled employees.
By 2031, ransomware will cost the world up to $265 billion. (Source: Forbes) By the end of 2021,up to 37% of all businesses were hit by ransomware. 2022 cyberattack statistics show that ransomware alone had cost the world about $20 billion. Experts estimate that this amount will hit $265 billion by 2031.
As of Q1 of 2022, The highest number of DDoS attacks comes from China. (Source: GovTech) According to China’s cyberattack statistics, the country is the highest originator of DDoS attacks in the world. The United States follows closely behind, while Brazil comes third.
One of the most recent and notable DDoS attacks occurred in January 2022 when North Korea’s internet was crippled. This attack lasted for six hours and all traffic to and from the country was taken down.
Windows is the most vulnerable Operating system (OS) for ransomware. Source: (Safety Detectives) Ransomware is likely to affect eight in 10 Windows machines. In contrast, only 7% of macOS devices have the same problem. The Operating system that is less likely to get such an infection is iOS with 3%.
53% of Canadian companies that experienced ransomware paid the hackers. (Source: Blakes) Despite warnings by the government not to comply, more than half of the companies that hackers targeted paid the ransom, businesses cyber attacks statistics show. Organizations dealing with professional financial and healthcare services suffered the most breaches.
Cyber Attack Trends
The YoY increase of cyber attacks has been on the rise for a couple of years now and shows no signs of slowing down. With that in mind, here are some of our picks for possible global cyberattacks trends that could happen in a few short years.
The cost of crypto crimes could rise to $30 billion by 2025. (Source: Forbes) According to Cybersecurity Ventures, the cost of crypto crimes hit $17.5 billion in 2021. This figure is predicted to exceed $30 billion by 2025.
Global spending on cybersecurity sat at $16.6 billion in 2022 first quater. (Source: Statista) Worldwide cybersecurity spending hit $16.6 billion by first quater of 2022.
Almost 80% of cyber attackers target government agencies. (Source: Forbes) The United States is the most targeted country in the world. Up to 46% of cyberattacks worldwide are directed toward the US. Of these, up to 80% target thinks tanks, government agencies, and other NGOs.
The most common type of ransomware is CryptoLocker - 52% of all. (Source: Safety Detectives) Ransomware is ever-evolving and every so often, a new variant crops up. Cyber attack statistics for 2021 show that the most prominent one is CryptoLocker, involved in over half the hacking incidents.
It encrypts your files, then demands payment before it can make them accessible to you again. It started affecting systems in 2013 and has been gaining momentum of late.
Second, in line is WannaCry, North Korean ransomware - 26%. In 2017 it crippled logistics, telecommunications, transportation, governments, and even government organizations in 150 countries.
The third most common ransomware is Cryptowall with 16%, and then the fourth is Locky with 13%.
Wrap Up
So, to give you a straight answer to how many cyber attacks per day would be kind of hard. But there are a lot of people out there who have dedicated their lives to getting people’s data and sabotaging businesses.
Hopefully, organizations will begin to spend more on cybersecurity to mitigate the growing severity of these attacks.