A Glance at the Statistics

Botnets
Robot networks or botnets are groups of computers acting much like an army with the aim of attacking one specific computer or groups of computers.

Think in terms of the inverse proportion examples you saw in school. If you have one hacker trying to target a network, it may take her a year or more. If you have hundreds of computers sending multiple attacks, it will take much less time. Experts from TechJury contend that botnet use rose to 34% in Q1 of 2018.

Facebook Attacks
If you use social media, then the chances are you use Facebook. By Q4 of 2018 alone, it had around 2.32 billion users. The sheer number of users is a huge call for online hackers. In September 2018, about 50,000,000 accounts were affected by an attack.

Financial Statistics
Estimates peg the cost of malware and phishing attacks as well as virus attacks on households at about $4.55. That is more than the GDP of a number of small countries.

Although that is a lot of money, the amount shouldn’t be too surprising because some of that cost comes from charges you only catch after a transaction. In a survey conducted in 2016, three years ago, 48% of participants actually responded that they had seen charges on their bank accounts that they weren’t privy to.

In the first half of 2018 alone, it is estimated that 15% of the attacks were to gain financial access be it through a virus, malware, ransomware and so on and so forth. Just take a look at the infographic below that reveals some pretty startling statistics.

What’s Next?
An integral part in solving any type of problem is knowing the root cause of the issue because that allows us to set up actions to combat the problem at hand. That is the absolute basic starting point of problem-solving.

What the statistics show are the areas where we are most vulnerable or have become more vulnerable. For example, the 33% increase in mobile ransomware in 2018 tells us that mobile attacks are definitely an area we need to continue to look at.

Overall diligence, an understanding of vulnerability and continuing to search for better security protocols are strategies that look to be necessary for the long haul.