Report: Cybercrime Victims Lost $172 Billion in 2017

According to Norton Cyber Security’s 2017 insights report, cybercrime victims collectively lost $172 billion last year.

“When it comes to cyber security, consumers are overconfident in their security prowess, leaving them vulnerable and enabling cybercriminals to up the ante this year, which has resulted in record attacks,” declared Norton, who claimed “978 million people in 20 countries were affected by cybercrime in 2017.”

Victims of cybercrimes lost $172 billion collectively in 2017, or “an average of $142 per victim.”

Viruses were the most common form of cybercrime (53 percent), followed by debit and credit card fraud (38 percent), password theft (34 percent), hacking (34 percent), and scam purchases (33 percent).

32 percent of those affected by a cybercrime clicked on a “fraudulent email” or provided sensitive information to scammers.

“Millennials are the most technologically savvy – owning the most devices (four devices on average) and adopting advanced security practices (32%) such as pattern matching, face recognition, VPN, voice ID and two-factor authentication, yet they make simple security mistakes such as bad password management (70%) and become a cybercrime victim, with 60% globally experiencing a cybercrime in the last year alone,” claimed Norton, adding, “Baby Boomers and Seniors are generally the safest age groups, though they make faux pas as well,” such as writing passwords down on paper and forgetting to make backups of their devices.

In 2017, 41 percent of consumers globally also lost trust in their governments “to manage their data and personal information.”