Your age, sex, and location can determine how likely you are to fall victim to internet crime on the biggest online shopping day of the year, according to a new report from OpenVPN.
Last year's Cyber Monday was the biggest online shopping day in the history of US e-commerce, with $3.39 billion spent online. This year's promises to be even larger. However, malicious attacks against consumers increase almost 40% on Cyber Monday, and online shoppers need to be more vigilant than ever to ensure the safety of their personal information.
To help consumers better understand their risk of falling victim to an attack, a new report from OpenVPN analyzed cybercrimes reported to the FBI and CSN in 2015 and 2016—concentrating on internet crime, fraud, and identity theft. With this data, researchers found the states that were affected most in the country for cybercrime victims, the amount of money lost, the number of victims, and the most victimized sex and age.
In terms of sex, men fell victim to cybercrime more 75% more often than women, the report found—possibly because men spend more money online, the report noted. In terms of age, people over age 50 were the group most likely to fall victim to attacks in about 30 states, the report found.
SEE: Information security incident reporting policy (Tech Pro Research)
Here are the top 10 states hit by cybercrime in 2016, according to data from the FBI's IC3 and CSN reporting databases. States are ranked from most to least total victims of cybercrime, by equally weighting the total number of internet crime victims (per 100,000 people), fraud victims (per 100,000 people), identity theft victims (per 100,000 people), average dollar loss per victim of internet crime, and average dollar loss per victim of fraud:
1. California
Money lost to internet crime: $255,181,657
Number of victims: 47,077
Most victimized sex: Men
Most victimized age: 40-49
2. Florida
Money lost to internet crime: $88,841,178
Number of victims: 324,569
Most victimized sex: Women
Most victimized age: 60+
3. Nevada
Money lost to internet crime: $15,246,405
Number of victims: 33,404
Most victimized sex: Women
Most victimized age: 40-49
4. Texas
Money lost to internet crime: $77,135,765
Number of victims: 320,002
Most victimized sex: Men
Most victimized age: 30-39
5. New Mexico
Money lost to internet crime: $870,165
Number of victims: 17,618
Most victimized sex: Men
Most victimized age: 60+
6. New York
Money lost to internet crime: $106,225,695
Number of victims: 148,637
Most victimized sex: Men
Most victimized age: 30-39
7. Arizona (tied)
Money lost to internet crime: $20,567,423
Number of victims: 60,625
Most victimized sex: Men
Most victimized age: 60+
7. Virginia (tied)
Money lost to internet crime: $49,175,677
Number of victims: 75,831
Most victimized sex: Women
Most victimized age: 50-59
9. Colorado
Money lost to internet crime: $30,893,224
Number of victims: 46,795
Most victimized sex: Men
Most victimized age: 50-59
10. Washington
Money lost to internet crime: $25,728,634
Number of victims: 55,607
Most victimized sex: Men
Most victimized age: 60+
To learn more about how to stay safe while shopping online during the holidays, click here.
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- Black Friday 2017: All the best deals, sales, and ads on laptops, desktop PCs (ZDNet)
- Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday: What's the difference? (CNET)
- DDoS attacks increased 91% in 2017 thanks to IoT (TechRepublic)
- Your biggest threat is inside your organisation and probably didn't mean it (ZDNet)
- When it comes to web traffic, 79% of CISOs can't tell the difference between humans and bots (TechRepublic)
- Password Policy (Tech Pro Research)
