Bangladesh has the lowest data breach density in all of Asia, according to a global study conducted by cybersecurity company Surfshark. With 0.6 breached email accounts per 100 internet users in 2021, Bangladesh has the lowest breach count in Asia and the second-lowest breach count worldwide.
Meanwhile, Iran has the highest data breach density in Asia and worldwide, with 231 breached emails per 100 internet users. However, the UK topped the cybercrime density chart with 4,783 victims per 1 million internet users.
In 6% of all analysed countries, breach rates are higher than 50%. Furthermore, more than half of the internet users in countries such as the USA, Iran, Israel, U.A.E. and Qatar got breached in 2021.
"Looking at the total breaches in 2021, we see that 71.7% of our analysed countries have lower than the global average breach density (16.5 leaked emails per 100 internet users). This shows that hackers target some countries more than others," said Agneska Sablovskaja, Data Researcher at Surfshark.
On a continental level, Africa has the lowest breached email address rates, with 4 breached accounts per 100 internet users. Asia has the second-lowest breached rates, with 12 breached accounts per 100 internet users.
North America has the highest breach rates, with 1 in 2 internet users having their accounts breached in 2021.
Phishing is the most common cybercrime that was reported in 2021. There were a total of 323,972 phishing victims last year. Statistically, every second individual that fell for an online crime was a victim of a phishing attack.
Since 2001, the online crime victim count increased by 17 times (from 6 victims to 97 victims every hour), and financial losses grew almost 400 times (from $2,000 to $788,000 losses per hour).
In 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the cybercrime victim count grew by 69% compared to 2019 (from 467,000 to 792,000 cybercrime victims per year). It was the highest cybercrime victim growth recorded since 2001.
People over the age of 60 were generally the most vulnerable age group to cybercrime since 2016 with over 92,000 yearly victims in 2021.
Overall, cybercrime claimed at least 6 and a half million victims and over $26 billion in losses in the last 21 years.