10 Frightening Facts About Cyber Crimes

If the idea of your phone being broken into terrifies you, read on. This happens to people every day on their phones and computers and the results can be devastating. Private information and photos can be shared publicly, or banking information can be attained and victims can lose their life savings in the blink of an eye. While there are beneficial uses for hacking when it is done for safety and intelligence purposes, more often than not, hackers have sinister motives. Here are ten things you need to know about hacking to protect yourself from it.

Out of Luck

The chances of you recovering any funds lost in a hack are only an estimated 32%.

Hacking is Becoming More Prevalent

Incidents of hacking have increased by 176% between 2010 and 2015.

It Happens Every Day

On Facebook alone, over 160,000 accounts are hacked every day.

Cyber Crimes Aren’t Solved Quickly

The average hacking case takes 170 days to solve, if it’s solved at all!

There’s a Cyber Crime Most-Wanted List

The FBI has created a most-wanted list of cyber-criminals, and at the top of the list is a man named Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev who was responsible for hacking and stealing funds upwards of $100 million dollars.

Former Employees Stealing Information

A 2009 study found that 59% of employees have stolen company information at some point. Often, this information will end up being used to take advantage of the company.

Not All Hackers are Bad

Just because someone has the ability to hack, doesn’t mean they will do so to take advantage of people. Often, these people are employed by government agencies and work to protect the public.

Protect Yourself

As simple as it sounds, most technology experts agree that the best way to protect yourself from hacking is using difficult passwords that differ on every account.

Hacking Isn’t Just for Computers and Phones

In 2011, the Sony Playstation Network had to shut down for several days to deal with a hacking incident that compromised approximately 77 million accounts.

It Only Takes Moments to Be Hacked

A six letter, lower case password can be hacked within ten minutes. If you add two letters and numbers, ten minutes turns into three years!