If you ever receive a friend request from someone you don’t actually know on social media, there’s a pretty good chance that this is all part of an Account takeover. Back in 2021, SecurityOrg conducted a survey to determine just how many people had fallen prey to account takeovers. It turned out that 22% of the 1,000+ Americans that participated in the survey had experienced account takeovers in the past.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this proportion has now increased to 29% in the recent iteration of the same report. This basically means that 77 million people have suffered account takeovers, and 20% of these victims faced the attack over the course of the past year or so. 34% experienced it within the last month based on the findings presented in this report.
53% of account takeovers focused on social media accounts, making them the most popular targets for malicious actors operating in this space. Banking came in second with 42%, which is far higher than 32% from the previous report. Email and messaging platforms meanwhile have seen their share drop from 26% to 23%, which seems to suggest that malicious actors are changing the accounts that the prefer to target.
It bears mentioning that 70% of account takeover victims admitted that they hadn’t used unique passwords, which just goes to show how important it is to come up with something that can’t be cracked through brute force. Around 40% of account theft victims ended up facing identity theft as well, and common passwords made them more susceptible than might have been the case otherwise.
- Also read: The Massive Cost of Government Internet Shutdowns Revealed
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