Attacks on individuals fall as cybercrime shifts tactics

According to the ITRC report released Jan 28, even with the decline, there were still 300.5 million individuals impacted by data breaches in 2020. Although this figure may include repeats, where a person is victimised multiple times. — AP

Cybercriminals shifted away from stealing individual consumers’ information in 2020 to focus on bigger, more profitable attacks on businesses, according to a report from the Identity Theft Resource Center.

The nonprofit, which supports victims of identity crime, found that the number of US data breaches fell 19% in 2020 to 1,108. But the number of individual victims of such cybercrimes fell 66% compared with the year prior.