Website security has become an increasingly important issue for businesses and consumers alike.
With the prevalence of online buying and selling, it is not surprising that hackers target websites to steal sensitive information or take over websites for their own purposes.
To better understand the scope of website security issues, lets look at the statistics behind website hacking incidents and the various types of attacks that put websites most at risk.
In a nutshell:
- The rate of cybercrime increased by 600% during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The financial sector suffered the largest financial losses in 2020.15
- The total cost of all cybercrime damages in 2021 is expected to amount to about $6 trillion worldwide
WordPress Security Statistics 2022
Here are some of the latest online security facts.
According to stats compiled by Web Tribunal:
- There is an online hacker attack every 39 seconds.
- 300,000 new malware are made every single day.
- The cost of data breaches in 2021 is set to reach $150 million.
Let’s take a look at the facts and figures compiled by WP Clipboard.
- Due to its popularity and widespread use, WordPress is a common target for hackers. There are close to 90,000 attacks per minute.
- 8% of WordPress sites are hacked due to weak passwords.
- WordPress websites are particularly vulnerable when they’re not updated regularly enough. 61% of attacked websites are outdated.
- 52% of WordPress vulnerabilities are caused by out of date plugins. 37% are caused by WP core files and another 11% by themes.
- Over 4,000 WordPress websites are infected by fake SEO plugins.
Data breach and hacking statistics
- The average data breach cost was $4.24 million in 2021, the highest average on record. IBM)
- The average time to identify a breach in 2021 was 212 days. (IBM)
- The average lifecycle of a breach in 2021 was 286 days from identification to containment. (IBM)
- The likelihood that a cybercrime entity is detected and prosecuted in the U.S. is estimated at around 0.05 percent. (World Economic Forum)
- Personal data was involved in 45 percent of breaches in 2021. (Verizon)
- Identity theft rose 42 percent in 2020 compared to the year before. (Insurance Information Institute)
- Security breaches have increased by 11 percent since 2018 and 67 percent since 2014. (Accenture)
- 64 percent of Americans have never checked to see if they were affected by a data breach. (Varonis)
- 56 percent of Americans don’t know what steps to take in the event of a data breach. (Varonis)
Ransomware and malware attack statistics
- The average ransomware payment skyrocketed 518 percent in 2021 to $570,000. (GRC World Forums)
- Malware increased by 358 percent in 2020. (Help Net Security)
- Ransomware attacks rose by 435 percent in 2020 compared to 2019. (Help Net Security)
- More than 300,000 Android users have downloaded banking trojan apps via the Google Play Store. (Threat Fabric)
- In 2018, an average of 10,573 malicious mobile apps were blocked per day. (Symantec)
- Around 26 percent of all web traffic is bad bot traffic. (Imperva)
- Microsoft Office documents are the most manipulated target, with attacks rising by 112 percent. (Help Net Security)
- 94 percent of malware is delivered by email. (Verizon)
- The average cost of a ransomware recovery is nearly $2 million. (Sophos)
- Only eight percent of businesses that pay ransom to hackers receive all of their data in return. (Sophos)
- 48 percent of malicious email attachments are Microsoft Office files. (Symantec)
- About 60 percent of malicious domains are associated with spam campaigns. (Cisco)
- On average, a company falls victim to a ransomware attack every 11 seconds. (Cybersecurity Ventures)
- About 20 percent of malicious domains are new and used around one week after they are registered. (Cisco)
Phishing attack statistics
- 57 percent of organizations see weekly or daily phishing attempts. (GreatHorn)
- After declining in 2019, phishing increased in 2020 to account for one in every 4,200 emails. (Symantec)
- 65 percent of cybercriminal groups used spear-phishing as the primary infection vector. (Symantec)
- Phishing attacks account for more than 80 percent of reported security incidents. (CSO Online)
- $17,700 is lost every minute due to a phishing attack. (CSO Online)
Stats on IoT, DDoS, and other attacks
- By 2023, the total number of DDoS attacks worldwide will be 15.4 million. (Cisco)
- Attacks on IoT devices tripled in the first half of 2019. (CSO Online)
- Malicious PowerShell scripts blocked in 2018 on the endpoint increased 1,000 percent. (Symantec)
- The Mirai-distributed DDoS worm was the third most common IoT threat in 2018. (Symantec)
- 30 percent of data breaches involve internal actors. (Verizon)
- IoT devices experience an average of 5,200 attacks per month. (Symantec)
- 90 percent of remote code execution attacks are associated with cryptomining. (Purplesec)
- 69 percent of organizations believe their antivirus software is useless against current cyber threats. (Ponemon Institute)
- One in 36 mobile devices has high-risk apps installed. (Symantec)
