Phishing continues to be the most common form of cyberattack for a second consecutive year, with 241,343 falling victim to an attack in 2020 alone, a new study conducted by cybersecurity company Surfshark reveals.
Despite the rise in phishing scams, confidence and romance fraud had the most significant financial impact in 2020, with reported losses of more than $600m (£454.4m).
"While innovations in technology develop at a fast pace, malicious actors continue to rely on old-known methods of online fraud that employ social engineering and human psychology faults,” said Vytautas Kaziukonis, the CEO of Surfshark. “A lack of awareness of cybercrimes such as phishing, confidence and romance fraud, and investment scams, is the main reason for these attacks being so successful years in a row."
Moreover, people who fell victim to investment fraud lost the most per victim, with average losses of £39,218.
The least impactful online crime is DoS attacks, with only around 2,000 victims falling for this type of attack, resulting in an average loss of $254 (£192) in 2020.
The study also found that since 2001, the online crime victim count increased by 15 times, and financial losses grew more than 200 times, from $2,000 (£1.5k) to $480,000 (£363.5k) per hour. In total, cybercrime claimed at least 5.6m victims and $19.2b (£14.5b) in losses over the 20-year period.
