In modern times, it is more and more likely for criminals to steal your data than your diamonds. Let’s talk about cybercrime. Every eleven seconds, someone becomes a victim of cybercrime. The more the world connects through the internet, the easier it is for criminals to access and steal something from you, from money to identity. Cybercrime is any crime that involves the internet or a networked device as a tool or target. Cybercrime has become one of the fastest‑growing threats to people in this digital era. To prevent it, you first have to know what you’re up against, and most of the time this means phishing, ransomware, or personal data breaches. Being aware of these crimes is a good first step, but you also need to know how to prevent them.
At the top of the list of cybercrimes is phishing, also known as spoofing. Phishing is when a criminal calls, messages, or contacts you in some way as a trusted company and makes you give up your personal information, like bank details or passwords. Phishing is the number‑one reported crime in the U.S. Over 3.4 million phishing emails are sent daily, and with AI, the click‑through rate has increased to 54%. Clicking on a link that an email or message provides can lead to the data on your device being immediately stolen or cause you to give up information. Though this may seem impossible to avoid, you can help keep yourself safe from these attacks by enabling multi‑factor authentication and alerts that allow you to see when someone logs into one of your accounts. If you receive a suspicious or unexpected email or notification from an entity you think you can trust, do not click it unless you have contacted the company and made sure that it was actually them. Understanding how phishing works and how to prevent it is essential because it can scam people out of a few hundred dollars to a few million.
Now you may be thinking, if it can happen to day-to-day people, how come big corporations aren’t affected by it? In reality, everyone, even big corporations such as Google and Facebook, has fallen for these phishing scams. For example, in 2013, a man named Evaldas Rimasauskas and his conspirators sent fake, forged documents that seemed authentic from a company by the name of Quanta. In reality, Google and Facebook both did work with this company, which produced computer parts. Since the finance advisors at Google and Facebook regularly handled multimillion‑dollar transactions with Quanta, they were tricked into wiring large amounts of money to different bank accounts. The scammers were finally caught two years after the scam first started. They scammed both companies out of almost 100 million dollars, but authorities recovered only about 50 million dollars of the stolen funds.
Extortionary. Malicious. Disruptive. These are just a few words that describe the next cybercrime we are going to talk about: ransomware. Ransomware can happen in many different ways, but essentially, it is when harmful software is placed on your computer, files, or data, and it locks the material until you pay a specific amount of money to the criminals behind the crime. From 2024 to 2025, there was a jump from 34% to 50% in global ransomware attacks. Between January and September alone, there were a whopping 4,701 confirmed attacks worldwide. However, there are ways to stay safe from ransomware like any other cybercrime. Staying safe from ransomware isn’t about doing one big thing but rather creating small habits, such as updating your software regularly, using strong and unique passwords, and enabling multi‑factor authentication. You can also keep important personal and work‑related files in a separate account or back them up on your computer, and be cautious when downloading things or clicking links on insecure and unfamiliar sites. Ransomware can be devastating, either through a loss of data or money, if it hits you before you can protect and secure yourself. Ransomware attackers have even targeted major companies that lost millions to these attacks.
In late 2023, the largest confirmed ransom was paid by one of the top‑earning companies on earth. The company name was never revealed for many reasons, such as protecting stock values, avoiding damage to its public image, preventing similar attacks, and avoiding scrutiny. The company was simply described as a Fortune 50 company. The jaw‑dropping 75‑million‑dollar ransom was paid to a ransomware gang named Dark Angels. Since the ransom was paid in crypto, the payment was confirmed through blockchain tracing, which is a forensic process of tracking money through many accounts and transactions. The initial access to the company’s data was likely through compromised logins, a weak virtual private network (VPN), or a phishing method. Before the leak and break‑in were detected, the criminals had already stolen loads of sensitive corporate data. After extracting the data, the Dark Angels locked the systems using ransomware. The company, at first, was not inclined to pay, so they were double‑extorted and threatened with permanent data loss, public leaks, and an operations shutdown. The ransom was finally paid to the hackers in early 2024. You may be wondering why they didn’t just access their backup and continue working, and the answer is that the backup was also most likely compromised. Since the Dark Angels knew they were threatening a huge company with sensitive information, they probably assumed there was a backup and corrupted those files as well. Since the company remained unnamed in all reports, its customers had no idea, and much change didn’t occur for the company. Even the limited information that became public impacted the market, because ransomware gangs started upping their ransoms as a new record was set.
Lastly, the third most‑reported cybercrime in the U.S. is a personal data breach. Personal data breaches are basically online thefts in which a criminal gets their hands on anyone’s personal information, such as their bank information, their Social Security number, and even their home address. Over 1.35 billion people were affected by personal data breaches in 2024 alone. There was almost a 312% increase in breaches from 2023 to 2024. Personal data breaches are also so dangerous since they can spiral into bigger crimes and issues for the victims, because with that data, so much harm can be done. Data that is stolen during a breach can lead to identity theft, financial fraud, account takeovers, blackmail, extortion, and long‑term privacy risks. Data breaches can even target businesses and corporations. For example, they can steal a hospital’s patient records, a company’s database and login credentials, or even a government agency’s database that holds lots of sensitive personal information that could harm national security. To prevent these malicious breaches, remember to create strong passwords, turn on two‑step authentication, keep your systems updated, avoid public Wi‑Fi or any unsafe Wi‑Fi, and check up on your accounts frequently for concerning activity. Understanding the facts of data breaches is one thing, but seeing real‑time examples truly shows the scale of these breaches.
“Expect more. Pay Less.” This is the famous motto of Target, and in fact, customers were left expecting more from Target’s security in 2013 when a major cyberattack stole hundreds of thousands of pieces of information from the Target database. In 2013, during the holiday season, Target’s network was infiltrated by hackers, and they stole a considerable amount of customer login credentials. After they got in, they didn’t stop there but actually continued to install malware in Target’s payment systems and collected data from 40 million debit and credit cards. Lastly, as a cherry on top, they stole the personal information of 70 million customers, including names, phone numbers, home addresses, and email addresses. This breach led to multiple lawsuits, massive financial losses, and long‑term damage to their reputation in the eyes of customers. Despite its best efforts, Target let down its customers and made them vulnerable. The Target breach was, and still is, a reminder that even a single security failure or weakness can expose the vulnerability of millions and hurt millions more.
Cybercrime is no longer a sci-fi movie threat but a constant and real one that affects individuals, corporations, and even whole governments. From phishing scams that trick everyday people to ransomware attacks and data breaches that shut down global companies, the digital world has become a crime scene where information is the target. As technology continues to advance, so do the methods criminals use, which makes awareness and prevention more important than ever. In the end, cybercrime is something that will continue to grow endlessly with the evolution of technology, and criminals will most likely be coming after your passwords rather than your padlocks.
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