Quick Answer
How many people get hacked a year?
Based on estimations, there are approximately 2,200 cyber attacks daily, equivalent to at least 803,000 hacks a year.
Over 5 billion people worldwide use the internet to gather information, communicate, and entertain.
As internet users continue to grow, more personal data and information were made available online.
Once people create an account on a social network, online financial service, and email service provider, there are risks of cyberattacks and hacking.
In 2020, around 30,000 websites worldwide were hacked daily.
64% of companies and businesses experienced cyberattacks.
Do you want to know how many people worldwide get hacked yearly?
Find out in this article.
How Many People Get Hacked a Year?
There is no exact number of hacks per year, however, based on estimations, there are approximately 2,200 cyber attacks daily, equivalent to at least 803,000 people hacked a year.
According to a report, there is a cyberattack happening every 39 seconds.
In the first quarter of 2022, hackers breached around 75,099,482 records.
Research reveals that hackers mostly attack the retail, government, technology, financial, and healthcare industries.
95% of breached records were from these industries in 2016.
They were targeted since they have numerous records of personal identifying information. In 2019, over 1.76 billion records were stolen.
In 2022, businesses experienced ransomware attacks every 11 seconds. 43% of hacking incidents target small businesses.
Approximately 64% of companies experienced at least one attack per year.
Types of Hackers
The act in which a techy person uses a network, computer, or technical knowledge to access systems and private data is known as hacking.
The person behind hacking incidents is called a hacker. There are White Hat Hackers, Black Hat Hackers, and Gray Hat Hackers.
- White Hat Hackers help companies develop stronger and improved security. They find security holes and expose vulnerabilities to fix them
- Black Hat Hackers access unauthorized systems with malicious intentions including financial gain
- Gray Hat Hackers are in between white hat and black hat. They do not want to steal, however, they look for vulnerabilities and weaknesses in a system without permission and report them to the owner, and often request fees to fix them
Number of Private Data Accessed and Exposed by Hackers
In the first six months of 2022, sensitive and private data were accessed by hackers.
There were approximately 817 cases of data compromises in the US, and more than 53 million affected people.
Most cases recorded were from manufacturing, financial, and healthcare services.
Here are the numbers of private data in the US that were accessed and exposed by hackers from 2017 to 2022:
- In 2017, there were 1,506 cases of data compromises in the US, and 1,825.41 million people were affected
- In 2018, there were 1,175 cases of data compromises in the US, and 2,227.85 million people were affected
- In 2019, there were 1,279 cases of data compromises in the US, and 883.56 million people were affected
- In 2020, there were 1,108 cases of data compromises in the US, and 310.12 million people were affected
- In 2021, there were 1,862 cases of data compromises in the US, and 298.08 million people were affected
- In the first half of 2022, there were 817 cases of data compromises in the US, and 53.35 million people were affected
Most Famous Hacking Cases
Hackers can access sensitive data through malware or virus and social engineering.
Below are some of the most famous hacking cases around the world:
1. Yahoo! Hack
The Yahoo hack was identified as the biggest hack of a single entity in history. 3 billion Yahoo accounts were compromised in 2013.
This hack includes personal information such as users’ names, contact details, passwords, and security questions.
Hacking happened again the next year, affecting 500 million Yahoo accounts. Russian hackers were identified behind the hacking incident.
They targeted the database and account management tool and steal users’ data through spear-phishing sent to Yahoo employees.
2. Citibank Hack
The Citibank hack occurred in 1994 when banks were becoming digital. Vladimir Levin and his team of hackers in Russia hijacked the system and steal account numbers and passwords.
They were able to steal $10 million. This incident was the first big money heist in Citibank computer systems and telephones.
3. MafiaBoy Attack
The MafiaBoy attack was made by Michael Calce, a 15-year-old hacker. The young hacker took down Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, eTrade, CNN, and Dell.
His goal in the distributed denial-of-service attacks in 2000 was to impress the community of online hackers.
Likelihood of Getting Hacked
Based on Statista’s survey in 2020, 34% of the respondents thought their accounts online would be hacked the following year, while 45% thought it was unlikely to happen.
The country with the highest percentage of likelihood of accounts getting hacked was Turkey.
50% of the respondents from Turkey were thinking that at least one of their accounts would be hacked in the following year.
Malaysia and Israel come next with 47% each, and Russia with 46%.
Most Common Action in Data Breaches
Most data breaches were performed by hackers. Hacking was the most common action in data breaches worldwide in 2019.
45% of breaches worldwide featured hacking. Errors and social attacks follow it.
Here is a list of the most common action in data breaches in 2019:
- Hacking was one of the causes of data breaches worldwide, accounting for 45%
- Errors were one of the causes of data breaches worldwide, accounting for 22%
- Social attacks were one of the causes of data breaches worldwide, accounting for 22%
- Malware was one of the causes of data breaches worldwide, accounting for 17%
- Misuse by authorized users was one of the causes of data breaches worldwide, accounting for 8%
- Physical actions were one of the causes of data breaches worldwide, accounting for 4%
Cybercrime Expected to Rise in the Next Five Years
Cybercrime is an illegal activity that targets a computer network.
Some involve fraud, theft of personal and private data including financial data and intellectual property, and the deletion of hacked data.
Most cybercrime cases want to make large amounts of money or damage networks.
The cost of cybercrime worldwide is expected to rise from less than $9 trillion in 2022 to almost $24 trillion in the next five years.
Let’s take a look at the estimated cost of cybercrime worldwide from 2019 to 2027:
- The estimated cost of cybercrime worldwide in 2019 was $1.16 trillion
- The estimated cost of cybercrime worldwide in 2020 was $2.95 trillion
- The estimated cost of cybercrime worldwide in 2021 was $5.99 trillion
- The estimated cost of cybercrime worldwide in 2022 was $8.44 trillion
- The estimated cost of cybercrime worldwide in 2023 is $11.50 trillion
- The estimated cost of cybercrime worldwide in 2025 is $14.57 trillion
- The estimated cost of cybercrime worldwide in 2025 is $17.65 trillion
- The estimated cost of cybercrime worldwide in 2026 is $20.74 trillion
- The estimated cost of cybercrime worldwide in 2027 is $23.82 trillion
Conclusion
Some of the reasons people get hacked are human and software flaws.
To prevent getting hacked, make sure to have strong and unique passwords.
Getting a password manager will help create strong passwords and securely store them.
People may also use two-factor or multi-factor authentication.
Another is to reduce the amount of personal information online.
Always remember to never engage in suspicious messages.
